Marketing ethics in context: the promotion of unhealthy foods and beverages to children

Marketing ethics has been described as an inherently relative concept whereby ethical problems and consequences result from interactions between individuals, but are also shaped by the context in which they occur (Chonko and Hunt 1985; Singhapakdi et al. 1996). In making ethical decisions, marketers are influenced by a complex interplay of factors in the broader cultural, economic and organizational environments (Singhapakdi et al. 1996). Within this field, issues arise from organizations’ marketing activities and their consequences (Chonko and Hunt 1985), and the way marketing decisions are shaped by moral standards (Murphy et al. 2005).