Marketing communication: principles and practice

P L A N N I N G T H E S Y S T E M
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This communicating of a Man’s Selfe to his Frend works two
contrarie effects; for it redoubleth Joys, and cutteth Griefs in
halves.
(Francis Bacon)
Tolerance is the virtue of those who do not believe much.
(G. K. Chesterton)
The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in
times of great moral crisis maintain their neutrality.
(Dante)
In that first age of mankind, men knew neither laws nor
revenge.
(Ransmayr, 1991)
Market discipline is a good servant, but a dangerous
master.
(Michael Grade)
chapter 
seventeen
PROFESSIONALISM
LEARNING POINTS
Careful study of this chapter will help you to:
• anticipate the nature of the job of marketing communication manager in
terms of role and responsibilities within the management system as
communication catalyst, interpreter, mediator, and communicator
• consider the need for, and obligations of, the responsible and responsive
communicator (i.e. the ethics of communicating)

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INTRODUCTION
Is ethics the forbidden topic for capitalist hegemonists – managers,
shareholders, and politicians?
Consuming now dominates all other modes of social activity: producing,
using, appreciating, participating. This has serious impact on how we
appropriate our world. People as individual persons are socially constructed,
but not merely as consumers. Is the attainment of a ‘good life’ synonymous
to rising living standards, through better and bigger consumption?
Ethical questions deal with diversity and difference, when conflict arises
between those who are ‘other than’. What ethical concerns are significant to
the manager of marketing communication? Consider:
• Do marketers reflect on the externalized costs of their decisions and
actions?
• What forms of consumption are ethically questionable and damaging to
the environment?
• Is the market-based system of consumerism ethically terminally unhealthy?
• Do consumers consider the origins of the commodities they simply have
to have?
The marketing communication manager has to be an amateur (reflective)
cultural critic. Ethical standards ensure that representation and expression
are not misleading, deceitful, exploitative, demeaning, irritating, wasteful,
arrogant, or servile.