Ethical Dilemmas and Vodafone: Advertising Standards and Practices

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the ethical issues faced by Vodafone, particularly focusing on their advertising practices. The core of the report examines the case of Vodafone's broadband speed claims and how these claims were deemed misleading by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). The report explores the implications of such actions on consumer trust, brand reputation, and the company's market value. It delves into key ethical issues such as fundamental principles, corporate governance, and corporate social responsibility. The author discusses the ethical decision-making process, including defining the problem, seeking guidance, identifying alternative solutions, evaluating alternatives, and implementing a decision. The report also explores relevant moral philosophies such as teleology, egoism, utilitarianism, deontology, relativism, virtue ethics, and justice, providing a theoretical framework for understanding the ethical dimensions of the case. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of ethical standards and transparency in business operations to maintain customer satisfaction and brand integrity.

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Introduction
Business ethics are the ethical, moral and principles or problems related to the ethics in the
environment of the business. The business ethics in other terms also known as corporate
ethics. These are basically norms, values, unethical practices which help in guiding the
business ethically so that there is no social or ethical issue in business. Ethics of business
also include contemporary organizational standards, sets of value, principles and norms that
will help a business organization to govern his particular action and behavior of an employee
in the business organization. The business ethics divided into two sections, one is normative
business ethics and the other one is descriptive business ethics. For this we select a particular
case of a Vodafone Company in which they claim minimum broadband speed or your money
back.
Business ethical issue with Vodafone
The basic ethical issue raised by Vodafone is to mislead or misguide the individuals of an
Australia related to the speed of their broadband. In this case, the main argument is related to
the claim made by Vodafone over the speed of broadband. According to the study I am able
to find that the basic ethical issue of business is not to mislead their customers as this will
affect the image of the company ("Ethics", 2018). In a business an ethical issue includes an
atmosphere which may relate to a situation includes business associates as a group or an
individual to determine the morality of particular actions so that they can have better
decision amongst their choices. The argument made in this article which is related to ethical
issues with Vodafone is very relevant as advertisement is misleading the people of Australia

Ethical Issue with Vodafone 3
(Schwartz, 2017). In history there are some other cases are also same as Vodafone for e.g. Neds
Company showing an advertisement in which a man is escaping a family dinner for betting
app this was showed the excessive use gambling app. Hence the advertisement is banned by
the government. The implications in the case of Vodafone are they decrease the value of
shares in the market as they misguide the people or Australia, which also decrease the
reputation of the company for making false claim in the advertisement (Sameon & Hisham,
2018).
The key ethical issue is the essential part of every organization. The key ethical issue includes
fundamental issues, diversity issue, decision making issue and compliance and Government
Issue. The fundamental Issues are the most important issues which are related to trust and
integrity in the business. The basic motive of integrity is to include the idea of organizing
business affairs with loyalty and a promise to treat every customer equally. In Australia,
Vodafone misleads the most important fundamental issue of business ethics (Nuseir, 2018). The
diversity issue related to the potential and current employees as all the employees are coming
from different backgrounds as well as different cultures. So in this organization always take
all possible measures to satisfy the basic need of their employees. The decision making
issues are a very important method as when the organization is to determine the ethical
course of action for particular ethical dilemmas this process will help in choosing the best
alternative to their course of action. In case of Vodafone ethical issue, they also choose the
best alternative to the help of this process as a result they banned the particular
advertisement. The compliance and Government Issue relate to federal, fiscal
reporting, environmental law, etc. According to Vodafone ethical issue the particular

Ethical Issue with Vodafone 4
authority on the government related to advertising (Advertisement Standard Authority) take
a legal action to ban this particular advertisement.
These are some other important key ethical issues is Corporate Governance, Corporate
Citizenship, Corporate Leadership Careers and Corporate Social Responsibility. The
corporate Governance is related to the system of practices, processes and rules which helps
in controlling and directing functions of an organization. Corporate governance always
includes the interests, stakeholders in many companies for example customers, management,
shareholders financiers, the community and the government should always balanced. As
Vodafone ethical issue also affects interest in shareholders as well as customer as it also
decreased the value of shares also. Corporate Citizenship includes the responsibility in
business towards the society and this will also help to meet ethical, economic and legal
responsibility which is related to shareholders. The main goal of corporate citizenship is to
produce equality of life and higher standard of living. These will help in establishing the
company loyalty and the brand in front of the public. In business ethical issue of Vodafone
in Australia there is no corporate citizenship as they do not fulfill their responsibility for
society. Corporate Leadership Careers are always on top of the structure of a company
executive. This will always help in creating a wide directions related to leadership for
supervisors, employees and managers. The basic idea of corporate social responsibility is to
fulfill the responsibility for the society. In case of Vodafone in Australia, this main ethical
issue is ignored as the organization no abilities to fulfill their responsibility for society.
The most appropriate ethical decision-making is related to choosing and evaluating the best
alternatives which includes all the basic ethical principles. In the process of ethical decisions
is essential to eliminate and perceive the unethical alternatives and then choose the most

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appropriate alternative for satisfying basic needs of the people. Ethical issue with Vodafone
the most appropriate decision is to ban advertising as the advertisement made false claims
(Soyoung Cho, 2017). These decisions are taken as the information in the advertising is false
because in the advertisement is mention if the speed of broadband is not high as mention in
advertisement money should give back to customers (Galsworthy, 2016). According to this
advertisement number of legal cases file against Vodafone. There are some other ethical
issues are also in Australia in which the most popular one is Hindu God Ganesha is eating
meat which affect the values of Hindus very badly. The legal action is taken by the
government of Australia is very reasonable as same as in the case of Vodafone they banned
the advertisement.
The ethical decision making process helps in taking corrective decision which does not affect
ethics or moral values of business. The first step is to define the problem. These are the most
important step which is to find when a problem arises and identify the result of the outcome.
In Vodafone advertisement problem is arises when they make false claim about speed of
broadband which may affect the reputation of the company as they misguides the people of
Australia. The second step is to seek out relevant assistance, guidance and support. In this,
we have to find out resources that may be helped in making the decision ("The PLUS Ethical
Decision Making Model - Ethics & Compliance Initiative", 2018). Resources can be a
professional guideline as well as people for e.g. colleagues, friends, etc. and the codes and
policies of the organization. The Third step is to identify the available alternative solutions
of the problem. In Vodafone they find the best solution is to ban advertisement due to legal
issues raised by the people of Australia and the advertisement standard authority (ASA). The
fourth step is to evaluate the identified alternatives. According to me, in Vodafone issue the

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decision is made by the ASA (Hasan Mahmud & García-Medina, 2018). So Vodafone have no other
option rather than banned the advertisement. The last step is to make, implement and
evaluate the decision. The last step in business ethical issue with Vodafone is to ban
advertisement as the advertisement makes false claims.
The moral philosophies related to ethical issues in business are very helpful in making the
decision on ethical issues. Before we start with moral philosophies we should know the
meaning of moral philosophies ("Moral Philosophy - Ethics Unwrapped", 2018). The moral
philosophies are basic approach which may focus on the basic idea or the concept required to
help you understand the process of ethical decision making in business. In moral
philosophies, if you want to appreciate then you must understand the different perspective on
the notion of goodness. These are the following moral philosophies used in business decision
are Teleology, Egoism, Utilitarianism, Deontology, Relativist, Virtue Ethics and
Justice(Gr�num, 2015). The teleology is taken know measures morally right or acceptable if it
produces some desired result, such, as pleasures, career growth, etc. Egoism is acceptable or
right actions or those that helps in maximizing the self interest of a particular person by the
individual. Utilitarianism is same as egoism but this includes total utility with the greatest
number of people (MILL, 2018). Deontology focusing on the right and intentions related to the
particular behavior rather than on its consequences. Relativist helps in defining ethics
according to group or an individual experience. Virtue ethics are related to the moral of a
given situation and the last one justice helps in defining the ethics according to fairness
(Norman, 2016).

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Conclusion
The ethical issues are formed in an organization due to lack of clarity in ethical standards as the
Vodafone must gain proper knowledge about the speed of their broadband and then make a
proper claim but in case of Vodafone they do not gain proper information and make false
claim which may affect the reputation of the company as well as the people of Australia feels
cheated by the company which may affect their satisfaction level also.

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References
Ethics. (2018). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics
Galsworthy, J. (2016). Justice. [Place of publication not identified]: The Floating Press.
Gr�num, N. (2015). A return to virtue ethics: Virtue ethics, cognitive science and character
education. Verbum Et Ecclesia, 36(1). doi: 10.4102/ve.v36i1.1413
Hasan Mahmud, N., & García-Medina, I. (2018). Vodafone: The relationship between brand
image and online marketing strategies. IROCAMM-International Review Of Communication
And Marketing Mix, (1), 7-31. doi: 10.12795/irocamm.2018.i1.01
MILL, J. (2018). UTILITARIANISM. [S.l.]: SMK BOOKS.
Moral Philosophy - Ethics Unwrapped. (2018). Retrieved from
https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/glossary/moral-philosophy
Norman, Z. (2016). Understanding Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics on Virtue and MacIntyre's after
Virtue. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.2746968
Nuseir, M. (2018). Impact of misleading/false advertisement to consumer
behaviour. International Journal Of Economics And Business Research, 16(4), 453. doi:
10.1504/ijebr.2018.100160
Sameon, S., & Hisham, R. (2018). Consumer Right on Misleading Advertisement: A
Development of Mobile Apps System to Lodge Report. Advanced Science Letters, 24(1),
626-630. doi: 10.1166/asl.2018.11774
Schwartz, M. (2017). Business Ethics. Somerset: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated.

Ethical Issue with Vodafone 9
Soyoung Cho. (2017). A Constitutional Study of Advertisement Regulation - centering around
commercial advertisement -. Public Law Journal, 18(3), 225-251. doi:
10.31779/plj.18.3.201708.009
The PLUS Ethical Decision Making Model - Ethics & Compliance Initiative. (2018). Retrieved
from https://www.ethics.org/resources/free-toolkit/decision-making-model/

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10
Appendix
ASA bans 'misleading' Vodafone broadband
ads
By Chris Kelly, Total Telecom
Wednesday 12 September 18

Ethical Issue with Vodafone
11
Vodafone's latest campaign promises minimum broadband speeds or
your money back - but the ASA has ruled that its advertising
campaign could mislead customers
(https://www.totaltele.com/501031/ASA-bans-misleading-Vodafone-broadband-ads)
The UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned Vodafone's most recent broadband
advertising campaign on the grounds that it could potentially mislead consumers.
Vodafone's adverting campaign, which features British actor Martin Freeman, claimed that customers
would receive a pre-agreed minimum broadband speed or receive money off their monthly bill.
However, following complaints from a number of Vodafone's competitors, the ASA ruled that the
minimum speed guarantee could be difficult to substantiate and has therefore banned the
advertising campaign.
In a brief statement to the press, Vodafone said that it was "extremely disappointed" with the ruling.
During the planned TV ad, Freeman's character can be seen playing an online video game. After a short
while, his internet connection drops out causing the game to buffer, lag and crash. His character is
the advised to switch to Vodafone.
The ASA has ruled that consumers may interpret the offer as guaranteeing speeds sufficient to eliminate
buffering and lag. Vodafone said that the ASA had fundamentally "misunderstood" its campaign.