To continue our conversation about ethical issues in digital marketing, we want to present a thought-experiment. These kinds of puzzles aren’t exactly meant to be solved, in fact they often resist being solved because there isn’t one right answer, but your logic and choices as you consider the situation can be quite helpful in developing your code of ethics. Today’s topic: deadlines.

The Situation

You handle the marketing for two high-profile software companies. They operate in separate markets, so there’s typically no conflict of interests with you promoting them both. On August 1, Company A is launching a new app called SharedIT, which is a productivity app designed to help working professionals keep track of project files on their smartphones. Just a few days after that, Company B is launching their new game, Obscura Hill, a POV shooter targeted toward teenagers.

The trouble is, through no fault of your own, you missed the ShareIT launch. You were in a car accident and were unavoidably absent. As a result, there was very little public splash about the launch, and questions in social media were left unanswered. Downloads of the app were alarmingly low.

And now you’re faced with a choice: you return to work on the planned date of the Obscura Hill launch. You only have enough time to work on one project. Do you spend your day launching Obscura Hill on-schedule or do you finally launch ShareIT and start cleaning up that mess?

Your Choices

If you focus on Obscura Hill, you're honoring your promise to promote their launch on time. While that promise was broken with ShareIT, that was not by choice. Perhaps you would see an active decision to delay Obscura Hill in favor of ShareIT as a betrayal. Perhaps you see the damage as already being done to ShareIT and want to prevent two failed launches on your watch. The question here: is the extended harm done to the ShareIT launch less than the harm of delaying Obscura Hill?

If you focus on ShareIT, you're stressing justice. You're making a sacrifice in one area (your ego and/or promise to Obscura Hill) to avoid making things even worse for another. In this instance, perhaps it's your sense of fairness that guides your decision. You might say, “It’s not fair to give OH a perfect launch while SI struggles,” and choose to spread the damage more evenly across both companies.

Now that we might have a baseline answer for this dilemma, let’s complicate it even further. By changing some of the variables, you can learn even more about what you value.

What if both of these companies are in the same market? If they'ere both gaming companies, for example, one company would benefit from the failed launch of the other. Does this change your answer? It might give insight to your sense of justice.

What if you have more at stake in one of the launches? Perhaps you have a better relationship with one client over the other, or you stand to make more money off that contract. Does this change your answer? It might give insight to your motivations.

What if the purpose of the apps are switched or changed? For starters, if the companies trade places, and Obscura Hill is the launch you missed. If that changes your answer, it might highlight your preference for productivity or gaming over the other, suggesting one app (and its purpose) has more value to you. Further, what if one app had more at stake, say, if one was a mental health app designed to assist people in crisis? Does this urgency of purpose change your answer? This answer might give insight to your values.

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So now we see how ethical issues in digital marketing play out. If there was a “right” answer, it would probably involve enough time to work on both, but the situation as-written places at least two virtues and responsibilities in competition with one another, and small changes to the situation shift major considerations. Your answers can teach you a lot about your marketing code of ethics.

So what do you think? Share your answers with us on social media, or complicate this puzzle even further if you’d like. Hungry for more? Make sure you’re signed up for Digital Marketing Weekly for marketing ethics (and more) in your inbox.

Ready to put yourself to the test?