Ethical marketing? Marketing people don’t always like to discuss it and your average consumer (who has enough trouble with marketing and advertising as it is) probably isn’t really aware that such a thing exists.
Actually, if we believe the average person, marketing always has an unethical, if not unsavoury, side to it. Mr Average does not believe that marketing obeys the rules. But exactly what are the rules?

 

Take your medicine

Mr Average is not always aware of the marketing efforts made for prescription medicine. Indeed, enormous efforts. The difference is that, unlike most other products, the marketing of prescription medicine is not directed at the end user. The targets are the doctors who prescribe the drugs.

 

But when we take into account that the marketing is not free, we find that the activity can force up the price of medicine, which, in turn, is passed on to the consumer.

 

How much are we prepared to pay for health? Medicine is not a product that becomes less expensive by the laws of competition; there are other laws at play. Laws, for example, which govern generic products. But generic products cannot heal everything.

 

Pharmaceutical laboratories are always searching for new drugs that are more effective, have less detrimental side effects and so forth. They are also carrying out expensive research and tests to find drugs against new illnesses, such as SARS, and existing but incurable disease like AIDS. People generally understand and accept this as a customary expense and use of resources.

 

But without marketing, doctors won’t be aware of new products, which means, in turn, that their patients won’t benefit from them. It’s an ethical catch.

The difference

So, how far can one go to get a doctor acquainted with a new drug and persuade him or her to prescribe it? Should the pharmaceutical industry limit itself to articles in scientific journals to announce new medicine?

 

Yes, academic researchers and specialists in hospitals would probably read the article, but when sandwiched among many other articles, there’s the risk that not all the information will be retained or acted on. As for general practioners, well, every day they see people they must help immediately and tend to stick with familiar medicine and treatments.

 

Marketers could, perhaps, organise seminars in an exotic holiday spot and talk about new medicine between golf games. Or, they could shower doctors with gifts to get their attention and interest. But is this ethical? And the end result is the consumer would be most likely picking up the tab.

 

The measure of ehtics

This, then, is the terrain of ethical marketing and the measurement that determines it. In the United States, manufacturers of pharmaceutical products have imposed a code of conduct on themselves. Not an easy task.

 

Representatives of manufacturers give doctors information about products they have been working on for 10 or 15 years. They also give doctors free samples of these long-test drugs. With the extensive research and the samples, doctors have the opportunity to try the medicine before regularly prescribing it. Moreover, with these samples the doctor can often help patients who have a low income or insufficient health insurance.

 

Alan F. Holmer, president and CEO of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, sees a justification for the marketing of medicine. "If doctors do not know about new medicines, patients cannot profit from them. Marketing with respect to doctors," says Holmer, "is an mportant part of health education."

 

Well, I suppose we could call this putting one’s cards on the table, but it does not win the game. My question is do the other players (the patients who foot the bill) get to put their cards on the table as well?