Lapses and violations in marketing ethics and law can result in employee turnover, revenue losses, decreased customer loyalty, criminal prosecution, and civil liability. Although these topics are addressed in some marketing classes, students noted insufficient coverage. Also, inadequate discussion of legal topics can stem from new regulations and faculty lacking legal acumen and experience. To supplement teaching of marketing ethics and law, eight learning activities were developed: marketing ethics audit to identify organizations’ ethical lapses, vulnerabilities, and illegal activities; deceptive marketing campaigns; podcast analysis of marketing and branding legal issues; analysis of photography privacy and property issues within a summer camp’s marketing program; service-learning to educate community groups about deceptive marketing; analysis of legal issues and policies for social media authorship; marketing ethics to augment Professional Associations’ Codes of Ethics; and identification of legal handbill limitations within municipalities. Such learning activities strengthen students’ critical thinking, research, teambuilding, communication, and reflection.
Raineri et al. (Wed,) studied this question.