Ethics and Abercrombie in the Digital World

 

Ethics and laws are two different things. Ethics are recommendations that your industry generally follows, whereas laws are enforceable by the government if broken. Marketing is, of course, subject to communication and advertising laws, but it also has its own code of ethics like that of the American Marketing Association. 

The internet has opened the world of marketing in a huge way, but that also opens the doors to numerous ethical issues that existed in different ways before. Selective marketing, in which companies only market to specific groups limited by race, gender, sexuality, weight, or ability, is still fairly common but more frowned upon these days than it once was.

The ethics violations in selective marketing that contributed to the fall of Abercrombie, though it is now rising again, are highlighted in this article by Avery Hartmans. Abercrombie's “male models were often photographed shirtless, either alone or in groups, while female models were often relegated to supporting roles. In the early days, nearly everyone was white” (Hartmans, 2022). Abercrombie was marketing only to their vision of a cool, all-American teenager: white, straight, abled, and slim. This was only the beginning of Abercrombie’s ethical issues, but it is very much the root of the problem. When you bring the internet into the mix and its power of targeted marketing through social media data, selective marketing can look tempting to marketing teams. Social media allows teams to gather so much data on their customers that the team may fall into the trap of only marketing to one specific idea of a customer, rather than their full potential reach. This not only limits what can be accomplished with a campaign, but can drive away customers who might otherwise be interested in your brand, but were insulted by customer depictions in your marketing materials.