Introduction
Integrated marketing communication (IMC) is considered the hottest global concept in the marketing field and one of the significant communication advancements of the past and present decades (Madhavaram et al., 2016). It has swept the global business marketing sector, becoming both a norm and a necessity for firms to win the race in attracting and retaining customers over their competitors. A successful IMC campaign entails unifying various marketing strategies and communication tools and creating an informative, persuasive, ethical, and catchy message about a service or product. IMC campaigns are important for businesses as they help produce desirable and consistent customer experiences of the services and products, foster healthy relationships between the firm and key stakeholders, promote the brand image, and increase sales (Zwerin et al., 2020).
Besides the marketers, IMC integrates several internal and external stakeholders, including the employees, customers, media, suppliers, the general public, partners, investors, government, and regulatory bodies who substantially brand image (Madhavaram et al., 2016). Therefore, marketers must consider and value different stakeholders through corporate social responsibility, including considering sustainability, ethical, and regulatory requirements when developing IMC campaigns. This report evaluates key issues concerning ethics, sustainability, and regulations that marketers must consider in planning their IMC campaigns.
Findings and Discussion
Sustainability has many definitions and faces. In marketing, Kemper and Ballantine (2019) conceptualised sustainability as planning, implementation, and control of production, promotion, pricing, and distribution of services and products in a way that achieves three goals: meets customer needs, attains organisational goals, and ensures compatibility with the ecosystem. It means that marketers must consider issues that arise in producing, distributing, pricing, and promoting services and products in the light of environment conservation, customer needs, and organisational goals and the associated information when developing IMC campaign plans. According to Baines et al. (2018), sustainability and ethics in marketing are intertwined, as sustainable marketing should meet the ecological, equitable, and economic (3Es) criteria. The ecological dimension means that marketing should not adversely affect the environment, and the equitability criterion requires the campaign not to promote or allow inequitable or unfair social practices. The economic aspect demands sustainable marketing to economic development goals in the long run instead of the short run. This report blends the two definitions and holds that marketers should market sustainable services and products and sustainably promote them.
In this light, the first sustainability issue that marketers should consider in planning their IMC involves the services or products they are marketing and whether they meet Baines et al.’s (2018) and Kemper and Ballantine’s (2019) criteria. It entails production conditions, product features, and exposure to risks or hazards. Concerning production conditions, favourable employees’ working conditions when developing the product or service, reducing or avoiding carbon dioxide emissions, industrial waste disposal, and reuse of materials are critical sustainable considerations (Kemper and Ballantine, 2019). For the product performance and features, natural ingredients instead of chemicals and a description of the ingredients is necessary as consumers have shifted to healthy consumption patterns. Again, organisations should avoid exposing consumers and the public to risks. For example, when designing outdoor adverts, they should use non-toxic paints. Lastly, when developing the packaging, which is usually part of the promotion, the issue of biodegradable versus non-biodegradable and recyclable materials should be addressed. Marketers should prioritise recyclable, biodegradable, and safe packaging consistent with the customer needs for safe consumption, ecosystem responsibility, and organisational goals in line with Baines et al.’s (2018) suggestions.
The second issue of sustainability that marketers should beware of entails pricing, distribution, and promotions. Using environmentally friendly advertising strategies: like digital marketing as opposed to roadshows that entail the emission of gasses, would support ecosystem preserving the goal of sustainability. Personal selling initiatives and promotion campaigns that blend marketing and the collection or recovery of reusable and recyclable materials and packaging are vital for sustainable marketing (Kemper and Ballantine, 2019). Concerning pricing, they should ensure fair pricing, provide accurate information on pricing and price comparison, and display relevant taxes. Marketers must consider social costs as part of the product’s total cost when planning their IMC campaigns. The durability of the products, energy use and conservation, and impact of advertising on the environment amount to social costs. It means IMC should use sustainable means, like the Internet or use biodegradable, reusable, and recyclable papers for print advertising or posters.
When designing the message and marketing content, marketers should consider their firms’ and services or products’ sustainability efforts and engagement in community, charitable, and environmental conservation programs. Here, the message should focus on consumption-related issues, like eating natural and organic food and a low-fat and low-sugar diet instead of food with chemical ingredients (Albinsson et al., 2020). For example, Coca-Cola, a beverage and food giant conducted a zero-sugar campaign to promote healthy diets. The bottom line is that consumers are now responsive to sustainable consumption and tend to incline to brands that score high in corporate social responsibility. Therefore, implementing sustainable IMCs would create a competitive advantage over rivals, reduce costs, and improve brand image.
Ethical issues
For IMCs, the concept of ethics reflects the organisational policies, society, and governing bodies. One of the ethical issues governing IMCs is data privacy. The growing use of online payments, social media, company websites, and email marketing has led to exposure or misuse of customers’ data, an ethical issue that marketers must consider. It is unethical to share customers’ data, including personal emails, phone numbers, and other information that can be used to identify them. These ethical issues often overlap with legal requirements. For instance, in Australia, unsolicited emails are a common teething issue, and the country has email anti-spam regulations. The law requires marketers to have the recipient’s consent before subscribing to a facility or sending emails (Lee, 2019). Because the meaning of consent is not well defined, some organisations have occasionally abused it by sharing directories such that personal emails can be retrieved. Besides the privacy laws, marketers must understand that exposing customers’ information during IMC campaigns is unethical and can negatively impact their brand reputation.
Ethics in marketing extends to advertising to and involving children in the campaign, mainly issues dealing with privacy intrusion and consent seeking. It is unethical to use children in campaigns without parents’ consent or collect and use children’s personal data in marketing, whether in print, digital, or broadcast media. Such actions are even illegal in many countries. For example, the US has important laws protecting children by providing the confines within which individuals and organisations willing to gather or use children’s information for IMC campaigns, research, or other purposes must operate within the legal framework (Albinsson et al., 2010). The Children’s Online Privacy Act prohibits deception concerning collecting and using children’s private data on digital media (Ingram, 2019). The law holds that websites should seek variable consent from the parent before gathering or revealing information about a child. In particular, these rules apply to B2C operations, especially businesses offering online services or products directly to people under 13 years. It means that marketers entering the US market should consider how to plan their campaigns. Marketers of children’s products, like gaming apps, have the most significant concerns regarding children’s data privacy because one needs to open accounts to play the game.
Another overarching issue of ethical concern in sustainable IMC campaigns is greenwashing. De Freitas Netto et al. (2020) defined greenwashing as the process through which organisations communicate false information about how their services and products are eco-friendly. Greenwashing has emerged as an impact of growth in the popularity of customers demanding products that protect or care about the environment. With many firms riding on the wave to attract and retain customers, those unable to achieve environmentally-safe production, services, and products tend to offer false information to appear as if they did to woe customers. Greenwashing subjects businesses to a high risk of credibility and the overall aim of sustainable promotions. Sustainable promotions are at the greatest risk, hence the long-lasting negative impact on future IMCs, because consumers will have negative perceptions of future environmental sustainability communications by the company.
The greenwashing issue raises both ethical and regulatory concerns. It is unethical because it provides a misleading message about the service, product, or brand to the general public (De Freitas Netto et al., 2020). Legal issues arise based on the country’s laws, as most states proscribe misleading, false, and unsubstantiated information on environmental matters during marketing. For instance, in the UK, the Green Claims Code by The Competition and Markets Authority guides marketers to conform to consumer protection laws when conveying information on ‘green’ initiatives. Lovino et al. (2023) pointed out that the code was published after it was found that most marketers’ claims on ‘green’ (environmental sustainability) commitments were misleading. Some companies hoodwinked the public eye by omitting some info, whereas others utilised logos suggesting that a third-party verified their brands or products as eco-friendly. As such, marketers planning IMCs in the UK should ensure they provide clear, unequivocal, and truthful information, which can be substantiated about environmental sustainability without omitting any material.
Misleading advertisements or false integrated marketing communications and sufficient information disclosure is a key ethical and legal issues to consider when developing IMC plans. For example, companies selling cigarettes should disclose the side effects of the product in their marketing. Again, it is unethical and illegal to provide false and misleading information about a service or product to attract customers is unethical and illegal. In the US, Mass. Gen. Laws c. 266, s91 untrue and misleading advertising, promotion, and sale of services or products. An example of an unethical and illegal incident was the case of SafeHands Solution, LLC and Recreation Equipment Inc. (REI) v. Steven Merola et al. SafeHands and its ‘targeted’ (REI) ran a marketing campaign in 2020, stating that their non-alcoholic hand sanitiser kills 99.99 per cent of all germs to lure people into purchasing the product during the pandemic (figure 1). However, according to the FDA, no evidence indicates that any sanitiser killed 99% of the germs. Alcoholic-based sanitisers, which were more effective than non-alcoholic have between 60 and 90% effectiveness, according to research (Healthy.com, 2022). SafeHands’ issue suggests marketers must avoid presenting misleading and untrue information when developing their IMC plans.
Figure 1. A misleading ad that led to a lawsuit (source: Healthy.com, 2022)
In the UK context, marketers must conform to The Trade Descriptions Act, which requires companies to ensure that the product marketed and sold have accurate descriptions that meet the customers’ expectations (Legislation.gov.uk. 2022). Wrong descriptions, like hand sanitisers during the pandemic, amount to breaches and can lead to penalties and reputation loss. Consistently, marketers should ensure they are marketing goods of merchandise quality, consistent with The Sale of Goods Act. In a nutshell, marketers should conduct an ethical and legal review of the target marketing environment when planning their IMCs, as laws differ across states and constantly change.
Lessening social and environmental impact
Businesses can reduce their environmental and social impact by aligning their strategy with corporate social responsibility (CSR), including considering each sustainable, ethical, and legal issue above. In production, firms should ensure efficiency in resource utilisation, use environmentally-friendly means, control emissions, reduce waste, and recycle raw materials (Sheth and Parvatiyar, 2021). Energy-efficient machinery and green energy might be considered when producing goods and packaging materials. Again, producing and marketing services and products locally would reduce environmental impact by minimising transportation emissions and mitigating the social impact by employing local communities.
Embracing a culture of honesty, truth, diversity, and equity in planning IMCs would help overcome issues of misleading campaigns, exclusion, and breach of privacy in marketing (Albinsson et al., 2020). Engaging stakeholders would help marketers collect views to address and meet various stakeholder needs. Companies can provide good working conditions and audit suppliers to avoid landing into problems of child abuse, environmental pollution, and deceit. Many companies like Coca-Cola and Apple are increasingly shifting toward natural products and eco-friendly and recyclable packaging to reduce the impact of waste disposal on the environment (The Coca-Cola Company, 2022). The choice of eco-friendly marketing strategies, like the Internet and biodegradable posters, could help firms lessen their IMC’s effect on pollution.
Marketers can use different strategies to educate customers on sustainable consumption and behaviour. When planning IMCs, companies can include information on product features that promote sustainability and applicable usage procedures (Sheth and Parvatiyar, 2021). For instance, when designing IMC campaigns targeting tourists in the digital advent, it is important to include an eco-tourism message that creates awareness and informs the audience about the steps and practices that align with ‘green’ tourism.’ For example, Gulati (2022) established that social media tools effectively promote sustainable behaviour among tourists during an IMC campaign.
Additionally, marketers can include a message on recycling and reusing packaging materials and offer to share and repair surfaces to prolong product life. Many manufacturers provide information on the ingredients and product use on the packaging. Including information on the reuse or recycling of the packaging or an offer for repair would help enhance awareness among the customers. Indicating the packaging is recyclable informs consumer behaviour. Coca-cola Great Britain has made recyclable bottles, which it collects after selling as a means to ensure sustainable packaging (figure 2).
Figure 2. Recyclable Coca-Cola bottle (Source: The Coca-Cola Company, 2023)
For suppliers – organisation-wide collaboration commitment, including engaging the procurement department, can help influence them to enhance their sustainability efforts. Marketers can work with the procurement department to set greenhouse gas emission (GHC) targets, like for supplied services and products. In this case, the procurement department should create relationships with suppliers and communicate the sustainability plan, encouraging them to work within the company’s sustainability goals.
Additionally, companies can encourage environmental sustainability among suppliers by preselecting and reducing suppliers based on their ecological initiatives and environmental impact. Choosing suppliers supplying environmentally safe products and using green strategies in producing and supplying the materials to the firm would encourage more suppliers to join the wave to stand a chance to be selected. The process might entail reviewing suppliers’ production and distribution channels, waste disposal, GHC emission, packaging, and the nature of materials or ingredients in their supplies.
Finally, companies can encourage suppliers to commit to environmental sustainability by including eco-friendly terms and provisions when negotiating business deals. In this case, the description of services or goods might include environmental safety standards in the aspects of means used to produce them, raw materials, recyclable and reusable packaging, and environmentally-friendly delivery services.
Conclusion
In conclusion, marketers should acknowledge that business environments are complex and dynamic and sustainability, ethical, and legal issues in different markets and constantly changing. The bottom line is that various stakeholders, employees, customers, the public, media, and regulators are increasingly becoming environmentally cautious and are key determinants of a company’s brand image and profitability. Therefore, when planning an IMC campaign for their services or products, marketers must study and understand the relevant ethical and legal framework governing marketing practices to avoid violations and promote a sustainable campaign.
List of References
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The Coca-Cola Company. 2022 Coca-Cola recycling and packaging. Available at https://www.coca-cola.co.uk/sustainability/packaging-and-recycling
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