Ethics in Digital Marketing. How does this apply for small businesses?

Internet 2.0 has brought about many interesting and helpful things to businesses. People have become more and more reliant on bigger companies like google or youtube.

However, this comes at a cost, the privacy of consumers. Up till now there is no rule about consumers and how they can protected. It’s still a very grey area even till now (year 2020). But certain things are made certain and if you’re not aware, your business might just end up breaking the law or even ethical standards of Singapore.

Singapore has 2 main guidelines to abide by when doing digital marketing where ethics are concerned.

1. Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA)
2. Singapore Code of Advertising Practice (SCAP)

So how does it apply to small businesses?

1. Truthful representation

As a business one code of ethics is truthful representation. Which means that advertisements should not mislead in any way by inaccuracy, ambiguity, exaggeration, omission or otherwise.

Small businesses should not lie about different claims or benefits if they are not true or factual. Businesses should also not lie about different facts about the product or prices in the business, it should not even mislead customers about the implied meaning of the advertisement.

Also an advertisement should be stated clearly as an advertisement.

2. Reviews that are disguised as being from impartial sources are not permitted

When using reviews to advertise for the company, it is illegal to use partial sources and disguise it as an impartial source. For example, there is a rise in fake reviewers who get paid to leave high reviews to boost the ranking of their products in places such as TaoBao. Even though positive reviews give a 9% increase in sales, however, it is illegal to do so according to SCAP.

3. The use of services and methods that fraudulently boost user engagement is prohibited

According to SCAP, using methods to boost user engagement is prohibited. So things like buying followers or bot followers to boost your likes or shares on a post so that the algorithm will boost your post is totally illegal. One example of this is when politicians from Indonesia, India and Thailand having fake Twitter followers, they do this to give their messaging a boost. But if put in a Singaporean context, this would be illegal.

4. Do not collect unnecessary data from consumers.

Today, vast amounts of personal data are collected, used and even transferred to third party organisations for a variety of reasons. This trend is expected to grow exponentially as the processing and analysis of large amounts of personal data becomes possible with increasingly sophisticated technology. With such a trend comes growing concerns from individuals about how their personal data is being used. Hence, a data protection regime to govern the collection, use and disclosure of personal data is necessary to address these concerns and to maintain individuals’ trust in organisations that manage data.

The PDPA is meant to protect consumers from organisations that would want to take their data to use it for their own personal gain. Like for example, companies selling customers information to an insurance company for telemarketing purpose.

Now if it’s found that a company violates the PDPA, the company will need to pay a fine of up to $10,000 SGD for every case.

What happens if you do decide to risk it and be unethical?

According to ASAS, marketers who fail to comply with the guidelines will be instructed to amend their marketing communication and failing to withdraw them altogether to avoid misleading consumers.

They will also risk the withholding of advertising space or time by media owners, as well as the withdrawal of trading privileges from advertising agencies.

Marketers who fail to comply with the guidelines will be instructed to amend their marketing communication, failing to do so will result in removal of the ads altogether.

In the case of bloggers, they risk the withholding of monies by their agencies. In extreme cases, there is the additional sanction of adverse publicity through the publication of details of the outcome of ASAS’ investigation.

Under certain circumstances, Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE) may also take further action under the Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act.

Conclusion

Don’t be unethical and although it’s hard to compete with larger companies with seemingly unending budgets, it is still very possible to be at the top of your marketing game so long as you are creative.