An R.N. from Tucson writes asking Cohen about endorsement of her new margarita mix:
"I am a registered nurse three days a week at a hospital and a bartender one day a week at a country club. I am about to launch an all-natural, premium margarita mix and want to include on the label that it is endorsed by a nurse — me. Ethical?" (The Ethicist, 1/2/09)
I agree with the spirit of Cohen's response, which is that to the extent that this endorsement misleads the public, it is ethically problematic. But Cohen takes this to mean that the endorsement would, in fact, be inappropriate; I'm not so certain.
Cohen writes to the R.N. that the proposed endorsement "suggests that your training and experience have convinced you that there is a medical benefit to drinking (all-natural, premium) margaritas." I think this is right, in a sense, but it may not be ethically relevant. Implicature is complicated. We do not, for example, fault Toys 'R' Us for falsely implying that shopping at their stores may slow the aging process. We don't do this because we understand that while in some sense they are suggesting something that is false, this implication is not meant to be taken seriously. And we know that this implication is not meant to be taken seriously because we understand that no (reasonable) person would take it seriously. Now, perhaps I am overestimating the public—or have unreasonably high standards of reasonableness—but I find it doubtful that many are naive enough to believe that any medical professional would seriously suggest that he or she believes any alcoholic beverage to be medically beneficial (setting aside current findings about wine, etc.).
At this point, one might be suspicious: Why would this R.N. bother to endorse the product in this manner unless s/he thought that people would take it seriously? First, it might be that s/he would not. It is possible that this particular R.N. does, in fact, believe that this endorsement will get people to buy the product because of its purported medical benefits. If this is the case, it may or may not matter ethically. This depends on the extent to which one takes intentions to be ethically relevant. Those who take them to be so may find fault with the proposed endorsement because it would be offered with the intention to deceive. Others, however, may consider only the (expected) results of the endorsement, and thus, if they agree with me that the intended deception would fail, may find no fault with it.
But I also think it likely that this R.N. has no intention to deceive whatsoever. More likely, the R.N. is employing a clever marketing strategy. The very fact that the endorsement would have such a ludicrous implication could help make the product more popular. I imagine a retro 50s design, hearkening back to doctors' endorsements of cigarettes: a canister with a label boasting a nurse in perfect white dress, cap and stockings holding up a margarita with a giant grin. Or maybe an "okay" hand sign and a wink. (In fact, I think this sort of design would help remove any concern of deception). Anyway, perhaps I'm a sucker, but if that was on the shelf next to the Margaritaville stuff, there's a good chance I'd buy it.
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I think you ARE overestimating the public. I think a careful study of purchasing behavior will show that when it comes to relatively mundane products or products that folks have little familiarity with, our choices can be affected subconsciously by the smallest of details. This truism is what the whole advertising industry is built around.
ReplyDeleteSo while I agree with you that not many people would consciously judge this product to be better because of the RN endorsement, it's reasonable to conclude that it would have an effect at some level on someone's choice. Endorsement by an expert is popular marketing strategy for just this reason (though I doubt consumers would by and large cite the expert endorsement as the reason they bought it).
So, I think the RN endorsement is manipulative in a tangible way. Of course, marketing is SUPPOSED to be manipulative within limits, so this fact alone doesn't make the endorsement inappropriate. But you might think being a health professional involves a kind of trust that should not be meddled with lightly. Any kind of implication that the product is to be sought for its health benefits (I'm assuming that this margarita mix is not particularly healthy...) strikes me as a small betrayal of this trust. When you imagine the product being marketed in a kind of ironic way (50's retro design, etc.) you're basically taking away the implication of health benefit. This approach would alleviate my concerns because the persuasive power of the RN endorsement would be replaced by other non-problematic gimmicks (and as you point out, maybe to the products benefit).
So my final thought might be this: To the extent that this woman is using her position as a health professional to sell the product by tapping into someone's predisposition to be swayed by such endorsements, what she's doing is wrong. To the extent that the marketing technique makes no implicit and covert suggestions about health benefits (such as your suggestions of ironic packaging), it's permissible.
That all sounds more or less right to me. I think I was assuming from the tone of the R.N.'s letter that s/he was not really trying to sway consumers with promises of health benefits (even unconsciously) but just thought it would be "cute" to endorse it as an R.N. and would thus likely embrace the sort of design I'm talking about. (Although, just a quick note: How do we know that such packaging really eliminates the the unconscious effects?)
ReplyDeleteI do think, in any case, that the question of intentions could still be relevant. If intentions matter, then we might think that if the R.N. were trying to sway consumers subconsciously, s/he would be doing something wrong. But if intentions don't matter, or the R.N. doesn't have that intention, I don't see it as immediately obvious that there is any wrongdoing, even if people are swayed unconsciously. That is to say, more broadly, that I am not totally convinced that it is not the consumer's responsibility to compensate for the ways in which s/he is susceptible to such marketing.