Corporate Responsibility: Just Sales or Doing Well by Doing Good?

The American Marketing Association Code of Ethics tells us that “as marketers, we must:

1. Do no harm. This means consciously avoiding harmful actions or omissions by embodying high ethical standards and adhering to all applicable laws and regulations in the choices we make.
2. Foster trust in the marketing system. This means striving for good faith and fair dealing so as to contribute toward the efficacy of the exchange process as well as avoiding deception in product design, pricing, communication, and delivery of distribution.
3. Embrace ethical values. This means building relationships and enhancing consumer confidence in the integrity of marketing by affirming these core values: honesty, responsibility, fairness, respect, transparency and citizenship. 

In addition, the AMA outlines a number of Ethical Values, including:

• Fairness – Represent products in a clear way in selling, advertising and other forms of communication; this includes the avoidance of false, misleading and deceptive promotion.
• Transparency – Explain and take appropriate action regarding significant product or service risks, component substitutions or other foreseeable eventualities that could affect customers or their perception of the purchase decision.
• Citizenship – Strive to protect the ecological environment in the execution of marketing campaigns.

(for a complete list of ethical values, visit the AMA website.)

Overall, based on the AMA’s ethics code and ethical values, I believe that Brita has failed miserably in designing and promoting their filterforgood.com campaign.

Pay close attention to how they are serving the water - really?

I don’t believe that Brita was intentionally, or even unintentionally, attempting to harm their consumers, however; they did consciously omit part of the story. The fact that they are encouraging people to stop using water bottled in plastic, while simultaneously not telling people outright that the Brita cartridges are not recyclable is intentionally leaving out part of the story – some might say they are intentionally misleading the public.

By not making a recyclable cartridge, Brita is also violating the ethical value of citizenship laid out by the AMA. 

It is not unrealistic to think that customers might make a different purchasing decision if they knew prior to buying a Brita that the cartridges are not recyclable. It is also quite possible that many consumers will lose faith in Brita as they begin to learn the full story.

Overall this campaign does little to add to the “integrity of marketing”, specifically in the areas of honesty, responsibility and transparency.

The problem with the AMA code of ethics and list of ethical values is that it’s not always this black and white when evaluating an ethical situation.

To expand on this, I will look at two other ethical theories, Kant’s Categorical Imperative theory and Mill’s Utility Principle theory.  

I chose Kant’s Categorical Imperative theory because the AMA lists ‘Respect’ as one of their Ethical Values, specifically to “Treat everyone, including our competitors, as we would wish to be treated.” (Many readers will recognize the similarity between Kant’s first manifestation of the categorical imperative and the Bible’s golden rule: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.(Patterson, Philip (2010-07-21). Media Ethics: Issues and Cases (Pages 9- 10). Humanities & Social Science. Kindle Edition.))

Despite the fact that Brita is trying to eliminate plastic bottles from landfills, this outcome is not trumped by their withholding of facts regarding the recyclability of their cartridges. Consider if all companies withheld information from their consumers just because they see value in the outcome (cynics hold your tongue here!). Or as Oswald A.J. Mascarenhas wrote in him book, Responsible Marketing: Concepts, Theories, Models, Strategies, and Cases, “Marketers cannot use their customers as means to their own ends.” (page 33) In this case profitability and social image. It seems unfair (dare I say, unethical?) to “dupe” customers into thinking that they are “saving the world”, when really they are just replacing one “evil” one another.

Alternatively, if we look at Mill’s Utility Principle theory, we learn that “the focus is on the outcome - the consequences of the action.” (L. Bindig. COM503 Ethics Cheat Sheet) And that “the moral worth of an action is determined only by its resulting outcome, and that one can only weigh the morality of an action after knowing all its consequences.” (Wikipedia) (For the purposes of this evaluation I will put aside the fact that our text tells us that “utilitarianism…is so difficult to accurately anticipate all the consequences of a particular act.” (Patterson, Philip (2010-07-21). Media Ethics: Issues and Cases (Pages 12). Humanities & Social Science. Kindle Edition.))

The filterforgood.com website states that 300 water bottles can be replaced by one filter. Additional facts provided by Brita include:

• In 2008, the U.S. (the world’s largest bottled water consumer) used enough plastic water bottles to stretch around the earth more than 190 times.
• It takes 2,000 times more energy to produce a bottle of water than it does to produce tap water.
• 69% of bottled water containers end up in the trash and not in a recycling bin. 

When you add these facts together, does the outcome (as defined by Brita above) out way the fact that the cartridge itself is not recyclable?

As with all ethical questions there is no right answer. While I think that it is irresponsible that Brita is misleading its customers by omitting the fact that the cartridge is not recyclable, Mill’s Utility Principle theory seems to be the most realistic way of looking at an ethical situation to determine how to proceed.