Goals of this chapter

After studying this chapter you will be able to:

• understand some of ethical dilemmas relating to marketing and, more specifically, to the use of marketing images;

• understand what ‘representational practices’ are and how they can become a matter of moral concern;

• understand why and how business ethics could have ignored this area of research;

• understand some basic themes in existential phenomenology;

• understand Sartre's concept of ‘bad faith’.

Introduction

This chapter deepens the sense of marketing's potential realm of influence, and thus broadens the territory for ethical issues in marketing. Marketing activities go beyond simplistic notions of promotion, persuasion, or selling ‘stuff’. From prenatal testing and political candidates to personal ads, little remains untouched by marketing. Indeed, researchers and practitioners in the field of marketing seek to understand, but also cocreate, modes of knowing and being. For example, how we come to think about travel destinations, and moreover what we think about the identities of the people who live there, may be largely the result of marketing communications, whether popular travel websites, television specials, or the latest beer and wine promotions.