Marketing Essay: Ethical and Marketing Considerations of Customer Data

This essay examines the complex ethical and marketing considerations that arise when a partner company requests access to a global retailer's customer database. The scenario presents the perspective of a Director of Marketing at a successful online retail store, exploring the implications of sharing customer data, which includes detailed customer information and purchasing patterns. The essay delves into the marketing issues, such as whether the data accurately reflects market trends and provides a complete customer profile. It also discusses the ethical concerns related to transparency, trust, and data mining biases. The essay explores the pros and cons of sharing versus not sharing the database, along with the actions the Director of Marketing can take to protect customer data, such as identifying confidential information and performing risk assessments. The importance of balancing data needs for customized experiences with customer privacy is emphasized, along with the significance of transparency in maintaining customer loyalty. The essay concludes by highlighting the societal marketing concept, which emphasizes customer well-being and ethical marketing practices, and it references the American Marketing Association's guidelines on customer transparency. The essay provides a comprehensive analysis of a critical business decision within the context of marketing ethics and customer data privacy.

Running head: MARKETING
Marketing Admission Essay
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Introduction:
The essay provides an insight into various measures that an online global retailer like
Amazon.com might undertake when a partner company contacts it for sharing the consumer
database. Amazon.com is an online multinational retailer headquartered in Seattle that not only
focus on e-commerce but cloud computing, digital streaming and the artificial intelligence.
Discussion:
Although sharing provides newer insights and enables making use of the core resource
however it involves some marketing and ethical issues for the global company whose database is
shared.
The marketing issues faced by the global company like Amazon.com in sharing
customer data includes whether the data is able to portray the market trends (Martin 2015).
Another marketing issue lies in the fact that the consumer data of Amazon.com might not
provide a complete picture of the customers.
On the ethical grounds, data sharing also leads to the amplification of the subtle and the
complex questions of transparency, interpretation, trust and collaboration (Greenaway, Chan, and
Crossler, 2015). Besides, data mining leads to the replication of the systematic inequality through
discovery of bias which was already present but was not accounted for within the architectural
database.
In this regard, the Director of Marketing either has the option of sharing the database or
declining to share the database with the partner company. The pros of sharing data include re-
usability and resource pooling along with common connectivity while the cons of sharing data

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involves more dependencies and difficulty in expansion of features. The pros of non- sharing of
database prevents duplication while the cons involves accessing the program from the local
machines.
The course of action undertaken by the Director of Marketing in protecting customer
data includes prioritizing and identifying the confidential information, studying current flow of
information and performing risk assessment, determination of appropriate access and reviewing
periodic progress (Baines, Fill and Page 2013). The course of action of the Marketing
Managers includes higher transparency and higher control which reduces spread of negativity
via word of mouth.
Buying the database is a customer privacy issue since it is concerned with building the
consumer loyalty and trust. To maintain transparency it is vital for the company in balancing
need for the data for providing a customized experience in browsing.
The American Marketing Association, customer transparency is maintained by taking
appropriate action regarding the significant service or product risk, component substitutions and
the foreseeable eventualities affecting the customer or the perception of purchase decision
(ama.org 2019). Yes, I do agree with the policy as it is important in maintaining the loyalty of
the customers for the company.
From the Marketing Program at Regis University, I would like to learn the societal
marketing concept. This is new marketing concept that highlights and emphasizes on importance
of the customer well being and the society in its entirety. It also revolves around building ethical
and social considerations into the marketing practice.
Conclusion:

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On a concluding note, it can be said that, there are various ethical and marketing
considerations that needs to be considered when a partner company wants to buy the database of
a globally renowned company.

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References:
ama.org. 2019. [online]. Available at: https://www.ama.org/codes-of-conduct/[accessed 07 Jun.
2019]
Baines, P., Fill, C. and Page, K., 2013. Essentials of marketing. Oxford University Press.
Greenaway, K.E., Chan, Y.E. and Crossler, R.E., 2015. Company information privacy
orientation: a conceptual framework. Information Systems Journal, 25(6), pp.579-606.
Martin, K.E., 2015. Ethical issues in the big data industry. MIS Quarterly Executive, 14, p.2.