To what extent unethical marketing techniques could damage the sustainable business environment. Discuss.
Marketing is like a double-edged sword, if it is adopted properly, it will give profits to a company; however, if it is used inadequately, it will give harm. It is undeniable that today’s business operations have more intense competition level against each other due to the advancement of technology that allows people to receive more information. Marketing plays the key role in making products being recognized by consumers. To get people’s attention, some massages about the product need to be sent to the target market. With the high level of competition, the unethical marketing issues arise in order to make their own firms gain more …show more content…

In extreme case, their reflection takes the form of parody”. They also said that the level of success of a parody depends on the high level of recognition of the original advertisement by the audience. If the original one is launched by the popular company and is widely recognized, the parody version will be the talk of the town. Sony, the world’s leading electronic devices company, revealed that ‘only the best are copied’. Thus, the popularity of the original work can guarantee the success of a parody. However, it is unethical practice when it is done by competitors as it is used to attack rivals’ brand images and/or products. For instance, iPod was parodied by SanDisk. SanDisk posted a website called ‘iDon’t’ to persuade people to use Sansa e200 MP3 player by SanDisk rather than using iPod from Apple with a message said, “the time has come to rise up against the iTatorship. There is an alternative” (Jean, 2011; Krazit, 2006). This shows that SanDisk tried to provoke consumers not to use Apple products, and it is unethical to use a parody to attack a competitor.

Figure 1: iDon’t advertising campaign
From http://www.maccast.com/category/random-thoughts/page/4/

Comparative advertising strategy is the ads that mention one product is superior to another product. It is unethical when one company tries to launch advertisements that attack its competitors both directly and indirectly, with or without the mention of competitor’s title