Conscientious companies act with integrity, honesty, responsibility, respect, and accountability.
Companies that put ethics at the core of their business strategy positively impact their customers’ affective devotion to the brand. This practice is called ethical marketing.
In this article, we’ll define ethical marketing and review 10 ethical companies whose integrity-driven practices are helping them win and retain the market share of their customer base.
What is Ethical Marketing?
Ethical marketing is a strategy that prioritizes honesty, transparency, and consumer well-being in all marketing efforts. In other words, ethical companies market their services or products not only based on their value to the customer but also on their social and environmental impact.
Ethical marketing practices aim to foster trust and long-term customer-brand relationships through shared values and goals. This builds the brand’s credibility, enhances customer loyalty, and contributes positively to the industry.
Businesses can achieve ethical marketing by thoroughly analyzing marketing issues through the lens of moral judgment. That includes:
- Creating marketing campaigns & content that is trustworthy & transparent
- Encouraging ethically valuable causes
- Consistently executing morally sound business decisions about production, sustainability, treatment of employees, and beyond
Ultimately, companies—whether small or big—that harness the power of social responsibility can not only attract customers but also meaningfully contribute to society.
To understand the value of ethical marketing, it’s necessary to study the companies that do it correctly.
10 Ethical Companies Setting the Standard for Ethical Marketing
1. Dr. Bronner’s
Dr. Bronner’s, founded by Emanuel Bronner, is the organization behind the top-selling organic liquid soap in the United States. The brand’s hallmarks are recognizable visual branding and powerful ethics.
The foundation of Dr. Bronner’s social responsibility prevails in its “Cosmic Principles.”
As per Dr. Bronner, the following principles outline the organization’s most valuable relationships and guide its decision-making.
These simplistic principles, such as “Do right by customers,” include all of the major standards of ethical marketing. The Cosmic Principles remain a consumable and actionable guide that sets this company apart.
Dr. Bronner’s utilizes its Cosmic Principles to support a broad range of causes, like income equality, drug policy reform, sustainability, animal advocacy, and regenerative organic agriculture.
In this process, the brand admirably roots its identity in social activism. By fostering shared passions by its customers, Dr. Bronner’s has completely built trust with a broad consumer base—moreover, it’s maintained it by consistent transparency and visible social action. Beyond that, consumers love Dr. Bronner’s wide selection of organic soaps and home products.
2. Everlane
Founded by Michael Preysman in 2010, Everlane is a clothing company that has established ethical manufacturing as its cornerstone. Everlane remains well known for its socially liable practices as it is for its famous vintage denim styles.
Based on the premise that “We believe we can all make a difference,” Everlane describes its principles on a distinct About page.
Pay proper attention to its copy:
We believe our customers have a right to know how much their clothes cost to make. We reveal the true costs behind all of our products—from materials to labor to transportation—then offer them to you, minus the traditional retail markup.
- “Our Ethical Approach.” Everlane only works with companies that score 90 and above in their compliance audits. This entails evaluating whether factories pay workers fair wages, ask them to work reasonable hours, and foster a healthy work environment.
- “Designed to Last.” Everlane doesn’t focus on trends. It prioritizes producing clothing pieces that are built to last, which is why it sources only the finest materials.
- “Radically transparent” While many companies shy away from revealing their manufacturing costs, Everlane goes against the grain. It shows the cost behind each product, from raw materials to labor to transportation.
Everlane’s ethical marketing approach remains effective because of the definitive proof it presents. Not only does it convey social responsibility, but it also shows its work!
This brand’s “radically transparent” policy is indeed radical and bold. It effectively creates an exceptional sense of trust with its customers.
3. Warby Parker
Warby Parker is a glasses manufacturer born out of difficulty with the high prices of prescription glasses—largely due to a virtual monopoly within the eyewear industry.
Apart from its commitment to providing eyewear at fair prices, Warby Parker follows ethical marketing with its innovative “Buy-A-Pair, Give-A-Pair” plan.
The plan operates on a simple concept: that everyone “has a right to see.”
It conveys this concept by donating one pair of glasses to one person in need with each purchase. Warby Parker also established training resources in its outreach communities for providing basic eye exams and selling affordable eyeglasses.
This wide-reaching action has reached people in almost 50 countries so far in its decade of continuation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Warby Parker temporarily changed its “Give-A-Pair” campaign to concentrate on providing personal safety equipment to healthcare workers and communities in need.
In the time of COVID and well before, Warby Parker’s ethical marketing has been successful because it involves the customer in the narrative. It puts the customer as an agent of social responsibility and change.
Warby Parker has been efficient in enacting tangible social advantages to needy communities, and it can confirm this benefit in emotionally appealing content and marketing.
4. TOMS
TOMS is a shoe company well-known for its “One for One” ethical marketing. Since its inception in 2006, TOMS has distributed over 100 million pairs of shoes.
From the start, founder Blake Mycoskie was passionate about donating shoes to needy children. Beyond creating any product with a highly recognizable style, he made an exceptionally recognizable social entrepreneurship marketing model.
While TOMS’s donation of shoes to millions of children is inspiring, its growth beyond that model remains even more so. TOMS has turned its practices, writing on its Our Story page, “Today we give ⅓ of profits for grassroots good. When you wear TOMS, you Wear Good.”
It has consequently shifted to donating $1 for every $3 the company earns to acknowledge the inadequacies of a complex and ever-changing world.
TOMS now concentrates its efforts on donating shoes & “impact grants” to partners who effect change in three sections:
- Building a safe place to live.
- Supporting mental health.
- Encouraging equal access to opportunity.
TOMS’s development remains expansive—it’s presenting Team partners with over 200 humanitarian organizations in 80 countries globally. It has gone to exceptional lengths to completely understand the communities it serves. Moreover, it has also expanded its partnerships to support endeavors extending from medical care to safe and sustainable water systems to mental health access.
TOMS’ growth has established its position as a socially responsible organization. The name has become synonymous with giving to those in need, but TOMS remains a masterclass in long-term ethical marketing that drives tangible difference.
5. Patagonia
Image source – thedrum.com
Since 1985, Patagonia has established its reputation as a socially responsible clothing organization. Through its signature outerwear, Patagonia has been perpetrating a decades-long war against fast fashion.
Utilizing campaigns such as its famous “Don’t Buy This Jacket” ad, Patagonia’s ethical marketing approach signifies multi-faceted:
- “1% for the Planet.” Patagonia’s “1% for the Planet” plan fully displays its environmental consciousness by self-imposing an “Earth tax” to donate to environmental nonprofits. Since 1985, they’ve donated $140 million in cash and in-kind to domestic and international grassroots environmental groups.
- “Workwear.” Similar to its “Don’t Buy” campaign, Patagonia’s “Wornwear” plan directly fights quick fashion. It helps consumers recycle and buy utilized garments through its online store. This concludes the fast fashion cycle and significantly decreases each garment’s carbon, waste, and water footprint.
- “Activism.” Patagonia remains a visible and vocal agent of change. On its Action Works page, it does not just promote social activism; it also supports connected consumers through activism in their local region.
Patagonia effectively weaves ethical marketing into every fabric of its brand identity. That is clear upon the first glimpse of its website and continues on each subsequent page.
Patagonia remains a remarkable example of ethical marketing that is comprehensive, cohesive, and believable. This socially aware company has built trust among its customers through decades of activism and commitment to change.
6. Lush
Image source – @lush_lotte_changwon
Popular UK-based cosmetics company Lush has long since been celebrated for placing itself as an ethically served company.
Upon visiting their Our Values page, you will come across this statement: “No company should be trading from an unethical position and society has a right to expect as the norm fairness and resource stewardship from the companies that supply them.”
This strengthens their belief that ethical marketing must be standard practice in the marketing space and across all businesses.
Lush additionally strictly prohibits animal testing on all of its products and offers customers a “five-pot program”, in which they receive a free product if they bring back five empty containers for safe recycling.
7. Starbucks
Image source – Startbucks
Starbucks is committed to 100% sustainably sourced coffee and uses a system described as C.A.F.E. (Coffee and Farmer Equity Practices) to optimize its sustainable sourcing.
Four concepts are at the heart of Starbucks’ C.A.F.E. sourcing system:
- Quality
- Economic transparency
- Social responsibility
- Environmental leadership
Starbucks aims to always get coffee at fair prices and ensures that each step of the coffee planting, harvesting, processing, and purchasing process is always done ethically.
Starbucks’s criteria for ethical sourcing are now recognized as the industry norm. Starbucks works with over 170,000 farmers and generates billions of dollars in revenue every year.
8. Lucy & Yak
Image source – @lucyandyak
Lucy & Yak remains a bespoke fashion company specializing in brightly colored, unique dungarees. They’re fully dedicated to fighting the issues caused by fast fashion.
All the clothing items remain sourced and created in India. Lucy & Yak has made it a component of its company ethos to only do business with organizations that do right by their workers.
Their items are packaged in a unique handcrafted material bag, and their fabrics are made of organic yarn. What’s the best thing about Lucy & Yak? They celebrate diversity and inclusivity like no other.
9. People Tree
Image source – Peopletree.co.uk
People Tree’s ‘Our Blue Planet’ collection is the perfect example of two organizations cooperating to create an ethical marketing campaign.
In 2019, People Tree partnered with BBC Earth to highlight the essence of our oceans & marine conservation. It’s the second collaboration the pair has created to promote sustainability among consumers by wearing something trendy and GOTS-certified (Global Organic Textile Standard).
As more marine and animal species become endangered, creating a clothing line that increases awareness remains an incredibly responsible and, moreover, simple way of taking a role in activism on a consumer level.
10. JUST Water
Image source – Beverage Daily
JUST Water remains a sustainable water brand. You might think, “Well, water is already sustainable as it is,” and you’d be right—sort of. There’s a lot more to a product than what’s inside.
Like Dr. Bronner’s, Jaden Smith’s JUST Water brand has a broad focus on social and environmental justice. It is committed to reducing carbon emissions by responsibly using recycled materials and investing in infrastructure, utilizing its profits to repair ancient water mains, and redesigning the water business model.
Another factor of JUST Water’s marketing success remains its commitment to forestry. The paperboard bottles signify FSC certification, and the company additionally offers a wealth of information on its site, including helpful infographics and images.
In addition to using plant-based cartons for their water, they also offer infinitely recyclable aluminum cans.
The Dos and Don’ts of An Ethical Marketing Strategy
Just imagine your marketing strategy as a roadmap to your audience.
You could utilize several different marketing tools, techniques, and channels to reach your audience and make sales. The marketing strategy will assist you in identifying the most efficient ones for your business.
An ethical marketing strategy includes mainly two things:
- What you market (ethical as well as sustainable services or products)
- How you market (your sales techniques without sleaze!)
In other words, practicing honest marketing techniques to attract the right audience who could genuinely benefit from your business and not depending on spammy techniques to get a quick sale. Ethical marketing avoids manipulative techniques such as creating false scarcity.
Ethical marketing strategies approach customers with respect. Ethical companies work with the right audience to create a better world by marketing responsibly made products and services that positively affect good causes.
If you’re considering to embrace ethical marketing in your company’s values, here are the essential dos and don’ts to remember:
Dos of Ethical Marketing
Try to be transparent.
As a marketing expert, you should always try to be as transparent as possible when marketing any product or service. You should try to provide your audience with the maximum amount of information about the service or product, its usage, and safety concerns about its usage.
Respect data privacy
A marketer who is trying to accomplish a marketing campaign tends to collect a lot of data about their audience. In the modern data-driven world, data privacy remains the biggest thing that affects the audience. For this precise reason, as well as the trust of consumers in the company, you must consider your audience’s data privacy.
Prioritize the concerns of your audience
Your audience will have many concerns about the product or service you offer. These could be as little as concerns about the features or safety of the particular product or service.
No matter how small your audience’s concern is, your first priority should be to respond to it in the most meaningful way possible.
Maximizing the benefits
Each ethical marketing strategy must strive to maximize the benefits, i.e., try to benefit the highest possible audience through your ethical marketing campaign.
Minimize the risks
Simultaneously, while maximizing the benefits, it becomes extremely necessary to minimize the overall risks connected with it.
Don’ts of ethical marketing
Don’t overemphasize or exaggerate
Each product offers distinct features and benefits to its audience. As an ethical brand marketer, you must explicitly state the features and benefits of the specific product. You must not emphasize or exaggerate these features or benefits. You must not promise anything you cannot deliver. Doing such things is unethical and, not beneficial in the long run.
Don’t make incorrect comparisons
The concept of ethical marketing doesn’t let you make misleading or incorrect comparisons regarding your competitor’s product or service. You must concentrate on marketing your services or products rather than comparing them to your competitors’ products or services.
Don’t make wrong or unverified claims
While using ethical marketing methods, you should not engage in methods like making wrong or unverified claims about your product or service. Never try to promote anything that is not true about your service or product.
Don’t exploit the emotions
Marketers tend to use emotions to better correlate with the target audience. Emotions generate a lot more interest in users than regular promotions. But as an ethical marketer, you should not try to harm or exploit your audience’s emotional side. You should respect their sentiments and not try to manipulate your audience.
Author:
I’m Subhash Kashyap, creative head at The Web Hospitality. I periodically write about various marketing strategies for small businesses to help them to be one step ahead of their competition.