The Legal And Ethical Considerations Of Marketing In America

Good faith, trust and fair dealings develop the mutual expectations and win-win relationship between the organization and the customers. A marketing decision should not only be based on firm's good judgement of target market and marketing strategies, but also adhere to legal and moral aspects of the viewers and customers. One of the primary marketing functions is the process of communicating the benefits of the products towards its prospective customers in which advertising plays an important role.

Advertisers in the United States of America are firmly bound by the Federal Trade Commission and marketers and are supposed to follow certain rules and regulations of marketing imposed by American Marketing Association (AMA). The association regulates and spread awareness about marketing and its ethical and moral considerations in any industry and marketing medium like TV advertising, print media, social media marketing or direct marketing. Here are some of the Ethical and Legal concerns, which marketers in the America need to follow while marketing their firm;

Marketing of illegal or harmful products:

United States has a strict policy for marketing the harmful products, as excess of advertising may encourage the viewers to exploit it and may result into injurious repercussions for the person. For example cigarette's advertisements are not permitted on all mediums of marketing and are not allowed to be aired frequently.

Marketing for children:

This is a very sensitive aspect of marketing as one has to be very careful while advertising their brand for children as they certainly have no idea regarding to exaggerated images and claims made in ads. This may develop negative images in their mind, causing serious consequences in their personalities.

Honesty and Fairness:

Marketers must be loyal towards their product and customers and must focus to fulfil the customer's need and avoid false, deceptive and exaggerated promises. They must stand by and respect the implicit and explicit benefits, which they are claiming to offer while marketing.

Social Responsibility:

While marketing in the US, one must focus on being respectful to viewer’s caste, color, race, gender, religion, citizenship and cultural norms and values. Marketers are supposed to be very watchful in this regard as any act goes against these social values may go erroneous for the firm.

Transparency:

Marketers in United States are supposed to follow various legal formalities such as avoiding plagiarized content while advertising, misguiding or taking advantage of illiterate people, misusing of customers or competitors’ privacy, targeting customer’s brand image and subliminal messaging or manipulative tactics of marketing which may potentially hurt the viewers emotionally, psychologically or spiritually.