MARKETING PRINCIPLES

Name: ______Hayden Hamilton_______ Block: __1st __ Date: ___4.23.2024_____

U8A1 - Business Ethics Worksheet

Equifax's Data Breaches

Credit rating firm Equifax makes its profits from selling personal, often sensitive
information to financial institutions and lenders.

But in September 2017, it revealed that it had been at the center of one of the worst data
breaches in history, with the information of some 145 million people, about half of the
U.S. population, compromised.

In the aftermath, CEO Richard Smith stepped down, as well as its Chief Information
Officer and Chief Security Officer, amid revelations that Equifax was aware of the system
flaw that the hackers took advantage of since March. Then, when the hack did happen, the
firm waited a full two months before disclosing it.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department is reportedly looking into whether top Equifax
executives committed insider trading when selling some $1.8 billion in shares just before
the breach was disclosed.

1. What ethical characteristics were compromised in the actions of the company and its
employees (reference slide 14 of the Unit 8.1 Business Ethics outline)?
Trustworthiness and responsibility ethics were breached.

2. How do you think this situation affected the company’s image? Sales? Relationship with
its customers?
This probably wrecked the company’s image and sales, especially because they
waited so long to tell the public and the customer relationships were definitely
ruined because they were leaking their customer’s personal information.

3. How can the Marketing Department address the situation and restore confidence in the
brand for customers and ultimately regain sales? (Remember – Marketing is all about
communication, what you say and how you say it!)
The Marketing Department should admit to their mistake to encourage people
to trust them and promise 100% transparency in the future and ensure that
their platforms have been secured and the should offer to pay for any damages
caused by the leak.

4. What can the company do in the future to prevent another situation like this from
happening?
Not hide the truth about customer’s personal information and where it’s going.
Also, not selling personal information for the company’s own gain.
Wells Fargo's Woes Continue

After losing the trust of consumers in 2016 for creating millions of fake accounts, Wells
Fargo struggled mightily to win back its customer base with promises of transparency and
reform.

But Wells Fargo’s woes only deepened in 2017, when the company admitted that it had
charged as many as 570,000 consumers for auto insurance that they did not need .
Additionally, some 20,000 of those borrowers may have had their cars repossessed as a
result. Wells Fargo said it would pay $80 million in remediation. Wells Fargo’s head of
consumer banking and some 70 senior managers in the bank’s retail banking segment
were also cut as a result.

In the same year, Wells Fargo also revealed that it had uncovered an additional 1.4
million fake accounts on top of the 2.1 million the bank previously disclosed had been
created without consumer permission .

5. What ethical characteristics were compromised in the actions of the company and its
employees (reference slide 14 of the Unit 8.1 Business Ethics outline)?
Responsibility, caring, fairness, and respect.

6. How do you think this situation affected the company’s image? Sales? Relationship with
its customers?
I think this would have ruined customer trust in the company and made
everyone hesitant to file anything with Wells Fargo in the future. They
probably lost a lot of sales as well, because if it were me, I would pull my
money immediately.

7. How can the Marketing Department address the situation and restore confidence in the
brand for customers and ultimately regain sales? (Remember – Marketing is all about
communication, what you say and how you say it!)
The Marketing Department can insure that the company is willing to pay for
damages or losses and inform the public that they did a reevaluation of all
employees to cut people who were making the fake accounts.

8. What can the company do in the future to prevent another situation like this from
happening?
Make their interface super secure and make it a challenging process to create
or add accounts to discourage people from creating fake accounts.

Wells Fargo Re-Established Commercial – 2018

Apple's Slowed Down iPhones

The tech giant’s year ended with a bang, after reports that Apple had purposely slowed
down older iPhones to compensate for decaying batteries.

It appeared to feed into a long-time conspiracy theory among some Apple users: that the
company had been purposely slowing down old models when a new version came out in a
bid to force consumers to upgrade. Now, the company is facing lawsuits for allegedly
slowing down the devices without first warning consumers.

In response, Apple has apologized for slowing down the iPhones, calling it a
“misunderstanding,” and offered to sell battery replacements for $29 instead of the usual
$79. Apple has said that once the battery is replaced, the iPhone’s speed will pick up
again.

9. What ethical characteristics were compromised in the actions of the company and its
employees (reference slide 14 of the Unit 8.1 Business Ethics outline)?
The company breached trustworthiness, responsibility and citizenship ethics.

10. How do you think this situation affected the company’s image? Sales? Relationship with
its customers?
I think this situation inspired doubt in loyal customers and probably lost some
sales temporarily.

11. How can the Marketing Department address the situation and restore confidence in the
brand for customers and ultimately regain sales? (Remember – Marketing is all about
communication, what you say and how you say it!)
Their Marketing Department handled the situation really well and I would just
further emphasize the discounted replacement batteries and the
misunderstanding.

12. What can the company do in the future to prevent another situation like this from
happening?
Not install bugs in the updates to kill the phone batteries and let the
customers decide when to upgrade or if they were going to rig the batteries
don’t line it up so obviously with the release of a new iPhone model.