The Question: What is the role of industry trade groups, government agencies, and marketers to self-regulate ethical practices?

The Artical: Raditional marketing vehicles such as advertising have been regulated to include limitations on promotions for such products as tobacco and alcohol. One area that has not had the same type of regulatory oversight has been the practice of product placement and companies working with "influencers" to market their products.

In a classic scene fromForrest Gump,actor Tom Hanks, who plays Gump, meets President Kennedy and says, "The best thing about visiting the president is the food! Now, since it was all free, and I wasn't hungry but thirsty, I must have drank me 15 Dr Peppers." Since Forrest Gump was a family film seen by many children, this scene could influence them to think that consuming large quantities of the beverage was appropriate and might even give them the stamina to undertake cross-country marathons (one of Gump's other activities in the film). Unlike traditional television and print advertising, product placement in films, television shows, and even video games has not been heavily regulated, but that's about to change. For instance, in Australia, the Alcohol Beverages Advertising Code (ABAC) is instituting expanded regulation of advertising and product placement for new, nontraditional media that have not been regulated previously.

Companies are also enlisting influencers to help them reach customers. Influencers might be people who have achieved recognition as an expert in a certain area, or someone who has amassed a large number of followers on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. The use of influencers has raised concern about the ethics of companies such as Amazon, Apple, and Google when they enlist teachers such as Kayla Delzer, who has her own brand, Top Dog Teacher (http://www.topdogteaching.com), that touts her teaching approaches through workshops. Since Delzer incorporates technology into her classroom, she has attracted the attention of both small start-ups such as Seesaw and large companies such as Apple, which provide her with products and services in the hope that disseminating her experiences through blogs, tweets, and workshops will encourage her followers to adopt their technologies. Because there is little research-based evidence that these technologies actually improve student outcomes, this situation presents an ethical dilemma for school administrators.

Another ethical dilemma is that some influencers use fake followers to increase the appearance of extended media reach, thus being able to command larger sums of money from various companies for their services. One of the most blatant examples of signing up fake followers was the appearance of a vending machine in Moscow where patrons could use a credit card to purchase likes, favorites, and followers for their social media sites.