Memorandum

DATE: 25 April, 2020

TO: Peter Brews, Dean

School of Business Representatives

FROM: Ashlyn Osborne, Darla Moore School of Business

undergraduate student

SUBJECT: Developing a plan to educate students on deceptive marketing

Here is the report you requested relating to educating students on the common
ethical issue in business, deceptive marketing. This report gives you
recommendations to raise awareness on the issue and to teach students how to
avoid the dilemma in their future careers. It includes research and support on why
it is important to incorporate this into our curriculum, as well as successful steps
other schools are taking that we can develop into a plan of our own. The primary
purpose of this report is to communicate the promising plan I have developed to
teach students about deceptive marketing.

Although the School of Business produces many successful business students, our
students lack knowledge on how and why to do their jobs ethically. Deceptive
marketing is tempting, as it can begin with a simple exaggeration and lead to an
abundance of success. But, the risks far outweigh any rewards of the practice. The
university wants the best for our students, so if students fail in their careers from
the pitfalls of deceptive marketing, the university holds some responsibility for not
providing a complete education.

I am excited to share with you the plan I have created to help solve this common
business occurrence. Through my time spent at the school, I have learned how
much the university cares for the growth of each individual student and I hope the
university can support its students in another way by implementing these
recommendations. This will allow the school to give the students the best
opportunity for success in their careers. Please feel free to reach out if you would
like any additional information. I would be happy to share more thoughts on the
subject.
The Education of Business Students on
Deceptive Marketing

Presented to

Dean Peter Brews

Moore School Representatives

Prepared by

Ashlyn Osborne

25 April, 2020
Executive Summary

Significance
Deceptive marketing is a very tempting choice for employees in the business world. While
strong marketing can create abundant success for a company, if the marketing is unethical it
can eventually lead to the destruction of the company. Therefore, it is important the
university create a plan to raise awareness and inform students of the negative effects of
deceptive marketing and how to avoid it.

Recommendation
I have developed a four-part plan to educate our students on this issue they could likely face
in the workplace. The plan is spread throughout each student’s time as an undergrad in order
to stress the importance of the information and normalize the practice of ethical business
practices as their education develops.
The four-step plan is as follows:
1) New Coursework
2) Encouraged Seminar Series
3) Optional Research Competitions
4) Required Senior Thesis

Step 1
Students will be required to take a Deceptive Marking Prevention class. This course should
be completed by the end of sophomore year. This class will teach students about the negative
effects of the practice, the possible penalties, and how to avoid it in the business world, as
well as creating a basis for student interest in the subject.

Step 2
Students will be required to attend at least one interactive seminar every semester from a
series of unethical marketing seminars offered by the school. These seminars will spark the
participation of students in the topic outside of the classroom.

Step 3
The university should create a center for ethical business research, in which competitions are
hosted for students to conduct their own research on ethical topics in business. Students
would be motivated by potential rewards and recognition.

Step 4
In order to tie together the knowledge students have learned, the business school should
require a senior thesis. Seniors will use resources within the school to present on an ethical
issue in business. This will put emphasis on the importance of the information they have
learned as they begin their careers.

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Table of Contents

1 Introduction ………………...…………………………..1
1.1 Significance ………………………………………………………1
1.2 Our Responsibility to Teach ……………………………………...2
1.3 The Plan …………………………………………………………. 2

2 New Coursework (step 1) ……………………………...2

2.1 Course Details ……………………………………………………2
2.2 Benefits …………………………………………………………..3

3 Seminar Series (step 2) ………………………………...3

3.1 Seminar Layout …………………………………………………..3
3.2 Impact ……………………………………………………………4

4 Research Competitions (step 3) ……………………….4

4.1 Student Support ………………………………………………….4
4.2 Evidence …………………………………………………………5

5 Senior Thesis (step 4) ……………………………....…..5

5.1 Thesis Requirements ……………………………………….…….6
5.2 Student Support ………………………………………….…….…6

6 Conclusion ……………………………………………...6

7 Works Cited …………………………………………....7

8 Attachments…………………………………………….8
8.1 Business Ethics Case Competition Team, UF…………....………8

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1.0 Introduction
Through my education and my knowledge of the coursework at the University of South
Carolina thus far, I feel our students are very well educated on how to bring success to
businesses, but I feel they lack the knowledge of how to avoid hurting their company
through ethical dilemmas. One of the most crucial dilemmas in the business world is
deceptive marketing. This holds so much gravity in the real world, as business success is
based on a company’s ability to sell products and services, and this ability to sell is
extremely increased through strong marketing plans and convincing advertisements.
Since marketing teams and advertisers are always trying to come up with the most
convincing ways to market their product, sometimes, whether intentionally or not, they
give out false promises or exaggerations about their products and services to customers;
this is deceptive marketing.

1.1 Significance
Deceptive marketing can harm a company, and lead to business failure in multiple ways.
To begin, false advertising is extremely unethical, so legal punishments have been put in
place in an attempt to stop this practice. Many cases of deceptive marketing reported
heavy financial penalties. An article by “Best Practice Standards” in 2018 about a case on
deceptive marketing wrote, “an investment services company, learned an important
lesson about misleading marketing practices when the Federal Court ordered it to pay a
$50,000 penalty.” (White, 2018). For an average sized company, this is a significant fine,
and as companies increase in size, these penalties become much worse.

More than the financial implications, the impact on the consumer-company relationship
can be destroyed by deceptive marketing. A major goal of nearly every company is
consistent business and this happens through loyal, returning costumers. But, costumers
are unlikely to return if they feel they have been lied to through misrepresentation of
company products. The report “Does Deceptive Marketing Pay?” reported on the
negative impact on a company’s relationship with consumers, saying, “These effects
were persistent and did not dissipate even 2 years after the crisis” (Song, 2017). This
shows the long-term negative effects deceptive marketing can have on business success.

Another article I looked at covered the risk compared to the rewards of deceptive
marketing. Since the reason behind the practice of this dilemma is the employee’s
fixation on reward, the article “Finite Optimal Penalties for False Advertising” looked at
the data from numerous deceptive marketing scandals and the effects on their business,
both positive and negative. Describing their findings, it stated, “The fundamental insight
is that it may be desirable for firms to make ‘speculative claims’ about verifiable aspects
of quality, but extremely high false claims penalties completely deter such speculative
claims, making finite penalties optimal” (Corts, 2014). This shows the penalties of this

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practice numerously outweigh any success created. This also serves as proof that we need
to educate students on this ratio, as the rewards may be clear when marketing decisions
are made, while the much greater risks do not become clear until later.

1.2 Our Responsibility to Teach

When our students graduate and enter the real business world, if they were not educated
on the effects of deceptive marketing, they may easily be persuaded into providing simple
exaggerations and false promises to costumers, and ultimately aid in the failure of
businesses. As the university that educated these unethical business employees, we would
be partly responsible for the business failures, since we did not provide a full education to
our students on how to correctly and ethically do their jobs. Therefore, the university
should incorporate course material and opportunities to learn about deceptive marketing,
in order to avoid aiding the failure of businesses and to allow for the success of our
students in their careers.

1.3 The Plan

I have researched and developed a plan for the Darla Moore School of Business to
incorporate awareness of deceptive marketing in student coursework. The university
should offer a mix of required and curiosity-driven material, such as courses required by
major as well as optional events outside of the classroom. I have developed the following
four-step plan to raise awareness and stimulate student interest in deceptive marketing:

2.0 New Coursework

To begin, we need to create a basis of knowledge and interest for the subject by requiring
a course about the downfalls of deceptive marketing. Currently, the university does not
offer any classes on this ethical issue and, through my research, I have yet to find any
college that requires a course in this. Although a lot of universities offer other optional
resources, college students still have no base-line interest on the topic, so there has been
limited participation in the other programs they offer, as well as little improvement in the
issue all together. Therefore, I have drafted a plan for a course on Deceptive Marketing
and the ways to be ethical in a business career, in order to spark the awareness of
students.

2.1 Course Detail

As stated, this course, MKTG 374, would cover the effects of deceptive marketing and
how to avoid deceptive marketing in a successful business career. The course would be
required for all business majors, as many students may stray from their specified major in
the real business world. The prerequisite of this course would be the required marketing
class, MKTG 350, as students must understand the basics of marketing, in order to

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understand how it can be deceptive or harmful. This course should be taken sophomore
year, so that students have time to participate in other research activities in later years.

The Deceptive Marketing class will be a one credit hour class for the following reasons:
• the requirement of an additional course that is a one hour of credit should not
interfere with any scholarships or tuition as most U of SC scholarships allow for
up to 19 credit hours a semester, and usually students take 15 a semester. This
means they would still have availability to take this class, even if the student was
already taking an extra class every semester.
• It should not exceed the difficulty of a one credit class as this class should not be
an extremely demanding one. We want the course to spark interest in the students
to do their own research or to further their interest in other projects. Therefore, it
cannot be so demanding that the class is dreadful to students.
• By keeping this as a smaller credit, it will have very little effect on the Darla
Moore School of Business’ academic budget. The addition of a course will
increase costs, but these costs are very minimal compared to the great benefit our
students will receive through this education.

2.2 Benefits
The course will offer a mixture of lecture-style, group discussion, and individual work, in
order for students to fully understand the material, be able to establish their own interest
in the subject, and develop other business skills, such as the ability to work in groups,
along the way. This new course is the first step to business success, as the school must
raise awareness in order to increase student participation in other events as well.

3.0 Seminar Series

Now that students are aware of the dangers of deceptive marketing, we must provide
opportunities for students to further their understanding of the dilemma. Through my
research of what other schools are doing to teach students on this subject, I discovered
many universities host seminars outside of class time. For example, New York University
reported about a seminar series they hold every semester on marketing, in which multiple
seminars are about deceptive marketing (New York Univ, 2019)). Our university should
incorporate a similar series as the second part of our plan, to begin transitioning student
research from mandatory to an interesting opportunity.

3.1 Seminar Layout

Each seminar will follow the listed itinerary:

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 1) Beginning- each session will start with a well-known and/or very knowledgeable
speaker on the matter. They will give topic descriptions, examples, penalties, and
methods to avoid.
2) Middle- the speaker will split the audience into groups and give out a simulation to
complete in order for participants to see how they may face the issue in their
future careers.
Example simulation- Students given a situation where they need to develop
a marketing plan for a product or service, while staying within the
guidelines of ethical business.
• During the simulation, the speaker and other knowledgeable
representatives will be walking around to listen in and help groups.
3) End- The speaker will open up the floor for anyone who wants to present the
solution to their simulation or for any questions, comments, and concerns the
audience may have. Then, he will close by giving the audience further resources
for the topic.

4.1 Impact
Seminars are a great way to give students real life experience on deceptive marketing and
the ways to avoid it. In order to keep participation in this series high, but still
transitioning students into doing their own research, business students should be required
to attend at least one of these seminars a semester. Then, students will be attentive to
when other seminars are available throughout the semester and hopefully voluntarily
attend a few more if interested.

4.0 Research Competitions

The third step of the plan is the student-motivated portion. As I researched other ways
schools are motivating their students to learn about this topic, I came across a unique
program at the University of Pennsylvania. This program is called the “Carol and
Lawrence Zicklin Center for Business Ethical Research” and it encourages and sponsors
students to conduct their own research through speech, presentation, and essay
competitions (Carol, 2020). Students are convinced to participate in these competitions
by potential scholarship rewards. This research program has proven to be very successful
and has increased the high-end education of the school. Furthermore, creating a similar
program at the University of South Carolina should bring the same success in the
education of our students.

4.1 Student Support

This program will host its competitions with the following support for the students:
• The program will be represented at all club and business fairs, as well as a
representative will come speak to students in all marketing classes, so students are
aware of this opportunity.

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 • Competitions would be held twice a semester for each type of research; essay,
speech, and presentation, so students have ample amount of time to develop an
interesting perspective on the information as well as creative ways to inform their
audiences.
• A section of the University of South Carolina website will be created for the
program, so if students have further questions, they can search for information
online.
• An office for Business Ethics should be created in the Darla Moore School of
Business, so students can seek guidance in their research plans from graduate
students, professors, and/or ambassadors.

4.2 Evidence
The University of Florida, Warrington School of Business has the Elizabeth B. &
William F. Poe Business Ethics Center, which is very similar to the program at the
University of Pennsylvania. Their Business Ethics case competition team has been very
successful, so I have attached further information on their competitions and
accomplishments at the end of this report (Univ of Florida, 2018). This information
shows how a program like this encourages student involvement and serves as a good
representation of how our university’s program should be conducted.

5.0 Senior Thesis

For the last step, as our students are extremely knowledgeable in the risks of deceptive
marketing through the many opportunities they have had throughout their college
education, the students should be given a last chance to prove their ability to apply this
knowledge. To practice applying their knowledge, as they will have to do soon after in
their careers, business students will be required to complete a senior thesis. It is important
that we create a way to tie together all the information our students have learned on
deceptive marketing, so it is a topic relevant in their minds as they begin their careers.
Many honors colleges incorporate thesis requirements in student education as they know
the benefits this project has on student success. In fact, even right here at the University
of South Carolina, honors students are required to complete a senior thesis. It is a great
way to wrap up a student’s knowledge in a subject and emphasize the importance of that
knowledge.

According to The University of South Carolina’s Honor College, a senior thesis is a great
way to “express the quality of your intellectual development and to draw your
undergraduate learning experiences together” (Univ of South Carolina, 2019). The Darla
Moore School of Business can adapt this idea into a way for students to sum up the
methods they have learned to ethically perform their jobs in the real business world.

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5.1 Thesis Requirements
Each senior thesis will have the following requirements:
• Written portion- the two-page written summation of their knowledge on the ethical
issue in business and how they will apply it
• Creative portion- students with the same topic will work in groups to create an
effective visual form of presentation. This could be a documentary, presentation,
podcast series, etc.
- This creative portion is included to create a more memorable way to think of
the information, allowing it to stick to the business practices of the student

5.2 Student Support

In addition, the Darla Moore School of Business will provide the following:
• Office for Senior Thesis Support- students can come for information or guidance
on creating their own thesis
• Team Workshops- students can get together with each other and counselors to peer
review and help brainstorm ideas

6.0 Conclusion
In summation, I recommend the university implement a four-step plan over the course of
a student’s college career in order to raise awareness for and normalize the thought of
deceptive marketing in real business decisions. The plan is as follows:
1) A one credit required course on deceptive marketing
2) Opportunities to attend a seminar series
3) Optional participation in research competitions
4) A required senior thesis on an ethical dilemma in business

Portions of this plan can be implemented on their own as well, instead of as a whole.
Although, I suggest implementing the entire plan in order to have a profound impact on
our students’ success which is what our university should be striving for.

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7.0 Works Cited

Carol and Lawrence Zicklin Center for Business Ethical Research. (2020). Retrieved
from https://zicklincenter.wharton.upenn.edu/

Corts, K. S. (2014). Finite Optimal Penalties for False Advertising. The Journal of
Industrial Economics, 62(4), 661–681. https://doi.org/10.1111/joie.12064

New York University, Marketing Seminar Series: 2005-2019. (2019). Retrieved from
https://www.stern.nyu.edu/experience-stern/about/departments-centers-
initiatives/academic-departments/marketing/events/marketing-seminar-series-
historic-archive

Song, R., Kim, H., Lee, G. M., & Jang, S. (2017). Does Deceptive Marketing Pay? The
Evolution of Consumer Sentiment Surrounding a Pseudo-Product-Harm
Crisis. Journal of Business Ethics, 158(3), 743–761.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-017-3720-2

University of Florida, Business Ethics Case Competition. (2018). Retrieved from

https://warrington.ufl.edu/business-ethics-center/business-ethics-case-competition/

University of South Carolina Honors College, Tools & Resources. (2019). Retrieved
fromhttps://www.sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/honors_college/internal/courses_r
equirements/senior_thesis/thesis_guide/

White, J. (2018). Be Careful what you Recommend. Journal of Business Ethics, 152(4),
573-721. https://doi.org/10.1019/s10431-017-3721-1

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8.0 Attachments

8.1 Business Ethics Case Competition Team – University of Florida

CASE COMPETITION TEAM

Ethical business leaders incorporate personal and social responsibilities into their strategic
decision making and can communicate their strategic visions clearly and convincingly to others.
A limited number of undergraduate students are accepted onto the Business Ethics Case
Competition Team, which provides unique opportunities to develop analytic, communication,
and team skills. Members of the team are provided the chance to participate in a number of
competitions throughout the academic year. The team regularly competes at the Eller Collegiate
Ethics Case Competition, Milgard Invitational Competition on Corporate Social
Responsibility, International Business Ethics Case Competition, Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl, and
the Southeast Regional Business Ethics Case Competition.
The Undergraduate Ethics Case Competition is highly successful at these competitions, and
regularly places in the top 3 positions for many of these competitions.

TEAM HIGHLIGHTS

Spring 2018:
Templeton Business Ethics Case Competition, 3rd place
International Business Ethics Case Competition, Divisional Runner Up

Spring 2017:
Templeton Business Ethics Case Competition, Divisional Runner Up
International Business Ethics Case Competition, Divisional Winner

Fall 2016:
Eller Collegiate Ethics Case Competition, Winner “Stephanie Chance Bright Line Award”,
Divisional Runner Up Full Presentation
Mid-Atlantic Ethics Bowl, Qualified for National Ethics Bowl (Top 4 Finish)

Spring 2016:
Southeast Regional Business Ethics Case Competition, 1st place
Milgard Invitational Case Competition on Social Responsibility, 3rd place
International Business Ethics Case Competition, Divisional Runner Up