Ethics In The Biz

The other day I was in the grocery store and looking to buy some crackers for the chunk of cheddar cheese I just picked up. Always satisfied with the ever tastey Ritz cracker, I decided to grab a box. Happy with my decision, I smiled at the red and blue box poking out of my grocery bag. When I got home, I asked my boyfriend to grab the Ritz crackers and bring them into the living room. He headed over to the grocery bags and started laughing. Bringing the box of red and blue over he told me that I had bought Harris Teeter brand crackers. I suddenly realized that I fell into their ever sucessful advertising trick of making their box resemble the well-known and trusted Ritz box. Astounded by my mistake, I started to question whether I applauded Harris Teeter for their strategic effort or madened by their trickery. This question led me to think about how organizations present their image and advertise their products or selves everday.
Of course, this led me to think about the ever popular topic of business ethics.
In my Social Media and PR class I learned that there are 3 basic approaches to ethical belief systems: absolutist, existentialist, and situationalist. In an absolutist belief system, something can only be either right or wrong. In an existentialist belief system, decisions cannot be made without thinking about the current context. And, in the situationalist belief system, a decision is made depending on what does the most good or least amount of harm. Since, I think that there is more to just right and wrong, I do not believe in an absolutist ethical belief system. If I had to chose, I think organizations should practice ethics depending on the current context. Once the current context is reviewed, then an organization could think about how they can present their image or advertise a product doing the most good or least amount of harm to the public.
However, this is not as easy as one may think. There are many fine lines when it comes to ethical PR conduct within organizations and it is very easy to cross the line. For instance our PR prof. urged us to question whether it is wrong to hire a reporter or journalist to present an organization in a favorable light or whether it is wrong to have a scientist within an organization present findings to the public (even though they could be biased). Or, when a PR rep puts an organization online our prof pushed us to question whether it is ok to use a domain name similar to a competitor or whether it is ok to follow or friend the public online in order to get them to notice and follow the organization back. While, I do feel that some of these ways may purposely be utilized to trick the public, I find them all ethically sound.
Furthermore, while Harris Teeter (HT) was deceitful in making a box identical to Ritz, I do not feel that there was anything unethical about it. HT may have used the same colors, but all one had to do was read the label and realize they were not Ritz crackers. This is a dog-eat-dog world and organizations need to get competitve in order to be successful. As long as a PR rep does not present false information to the public or break any laws, I say any advertising tactic is fair game.