Ethical and Legal Considerations in Marketing

In this blog I will be look into various ethical or legal problems that may arise during the marketing of the Live Support platform. This is what I would need to do as part of a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) as it focuses on the possible Weaknesses and Threats. I will discuss 4 examples below. 

Firstly, the Live Support platform requires people to donate money to support musicians through Covid-19 and beyond, so any marketing needs to show that it is trustworthy and shows clear moral and ethical guidelines and law-abiding principals. In the past 10 years people have become more away of how important it is to keep their personal information and data secure. So the platform needs to be trustworthy otherwise people will not donate money! I will need to have a section on the website about privacy and data protection. Also I will have a section on how the donations will be distributed to musicians, so that consumers can clearly see how their money will be used. Maybe I could have a list of bands/musicians that have received donations, so that everything is transparent. I could also have a ‘suggestion box’ in which visitors to the platform can suggest musicians that would benefit from donations from Live Support. Being transparent and engaging consumers will help improve trust.

One of my possible weaknesses is that I could be biased against a protected group under the Equality Act 2010. Therefore I could be prosecuted under act. I want to make sure I do not discriminate against certain groups of people. I will create focus groups of diverse groups of people from the BAME, LGBTQ, groups of disabled people, women’s and men’s groups who could advise me on improvements to the platform that make it fair for everyone. For example I might use audio descriptors for blind people and will make sure the images used include different types of protected groups. As I want to attract mainly 18-30 year olds, I will make sure this age group is mostly represented, but I also want to include other age groups so I am not excluding older our younger people. Also this will help me to attract consumers from outside the 18-30s. The more people I can attract the website to donate the more financial support musicians can have.

On the platform there will be music, images and footage of bands that might be copyrighted. If I don’t stay within the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 I could get prosecuted. This is a big concern because I will be dealing with lots of musicians and music/images/footage that will be copyrighted. I will make sure I consult the musicians and/or the record company to make sure I am not breaking use any copyrights or licences. Also I may want to have copyright protection on the footages and images on the platform so that people cannot download them so I may use encryption software. Also I will put copyright and trademark symbols and clear notifications to make it clear to consumers that the footage is copyrighted and protected and will acknowledge to the musicians and companies that own the copyrights.

The Live Support platform has a shop to sell merchandise, so I will have to abide by trading standards laws. The Consumer Protection Act 1986 provides compensation to a consumer that has problems. It protects and encourages them to report poor products and services. So I want to make sure the merchandise I sell is good quality and I provide a good service to make sure I do not get prosecuted. So I will do some research by looking at shops on similar websites to see what they sell, contact people who have set up shops to ask them how they did it, what problems they had, what type of merchandise sells well and what doesn’t, tips on packing and posting and so on. I will also ask advice on terms and conditions.

The platform has a chat room. The chat room has to be policed so people don’t get harassed or bullied. Cyberbullying has not been legally defined in UK law, but there are several laws that can be applied to cyberbullying and online harassment. These are the main acts that cover Cyberbullying.

·        Protection from Harassment Act 1997 protects unwanted behaviour, which you find offensive intimidating or humiliating.

·        Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 is about providing guidance for sentencing adults for crimes.

·        Malicious Communications Act 1988 it protects people from communications that are indecent or offensive, threatening, or contains false information.

·        Communications Act 2003 this prosecutes people for sending or posting offensive content.

·        Defamation Act 2013 protects people against falsehoods or misinformation that against a persons character.

My target audience is aged 18-30 year old and this age group uses social media the most and will probably have used chat rooms. They will also know about cyberbullying because it is in the news a lot and there are issues about social media platforms policing bullying. For example, recently a young girl committed suicide after being bullied on Instagram, and Jesse Nelson also attempted suicide because of people bullying her because of how she looked. She has even made a documentary on this issue. I do not want this to happen on the Live Support platform, so I need to have clear terms and conditions for using the chat room. Administrators need to be appointed to manage the chat rooms, to prevent on-line abuse and bullying. This will also protect me against lawsuits. I will also get an idea of how to set it up a chat room from other people and also do research on line to help set up the chat room and how it will be managed. Users of the chat room will have to log in to the Live Support platform and their data will have to be kept secure, including their IP address. The IP address could help to trace any abusers of that occurred.

The acts I have discussed above protect people, but also help people like me to stay within the law. If I do not follow the acts and get sued, then people will not donate their money. I am wondering it is would be worth paying for a legal expert to advise me on the things above to make sure I stay totally within the law.