Ethical Marketing Policy
Faversham House is a progressive, independent media company with a diverse and compelling portfolio of digital platforms, exhibitions, events and print publications. We operate in two
markets: utilities and sustainability.
PURPOSE
This ethical marketing policy (the ‘Policy’) sets out Faversham House’s position on marketing practices and efforts to go beyond compliance to ensure honesty, fairness and responsibility in our ways of working in line with our company value that “we care”.
SCOPE
This Policy applies to all our team at any level and third parties associated with Faversham House, no matter where they are located. In the context of this Policy, third-party refers to any individual or organisation that Faversham House meets and works with including but not limited to suppliers, contractors, distributors and customers.
WE COMMIT TO ALL OUR MARKETING BEING HONEST, ACCURATE, DECENT & LEGAL
WE PLEDGE TO:
• Never use dishonest marketing tactics
• Provide accurate descriptions of products and services
• Never unfairly portray or refer to anyone in an adverse or offensive way
• Respect the privacy and confidentiality of customers, protecting them from unwarranted
infringements of privacy
• We will apply standards of fairness and transparency and refrain from tactics intended to
attack or undermine our competitors, such as generating negative publicity or making unfair
comparisons
WE COMMIT TO ON-GOING MONITORING & REVIEW
Faversham house will evaluate the effectiveness of this Policy and the implementation of it on an ongoing basis, to ensure that it remains effective and reflects best practice. To ensure that the ethics of our marketing approach are considered the following questions will be asked at the beginning and end of each campaign:
1. Is our language honest and transparent
2. Is our messaging exaggerated or misleading
3. Is our imagery fairly representative
4. Are our quotes accurate
5. Have we considered our target audience
6. Are we GDPR compliant
Faversham House will include information on compliance to and continuous improvement of this policy in annual business reports to ensure transparency of operational practices.
Honesty & Accuracy
We commit to honest and accurate marketing tactics and will not:
• Inflate numbers, manipulate data
• Mislead audiences with stories that aren’t true and accurate
• Make unrealistic claims about expected results
• Fake or doctor reviews
Our campaigns are fully honest and transparent about the social and environmental impacts of our work, we will review marketing and communications strategies and tactics to ensure that they are not engaging in impact-washing.
Accessibility
Faversham House aims to make sure that web content meets the accessibility needs of individuals, organisations and governments including:
• Providing text alternatives for non-text contact
• Captions and other alternatives for multimedia
• Make it easier for users to see and hear content
• Give users enough time to read and use content
• Do not use content that causes seizures or physical reactions
• Help users navigate and find content
• Make text readable and understandable
• Make content appear and operate in predictable ways
• Maximize compatibility with current and future user tools
Dignity & Diversity
We understand that there is diversity in our audience and we acknowledge there are groups who are vulnerable that must be considered in judging how advertising will be understood and acted upon by society in general.
We pledge to:
1. Acknowledge the basic human dignity of all our stakeholders and value individual differences, avoiding stereotyping or depicting demographic groups e.g. gender, race, sexual orientation in a negative or dehumanising way
2. Combine self-awareness with inclusivity in the creative process to avoid marketing campaigns that are culturally insensitive
3. Listen to the needs of customers and make all reasonable efforts to monitor and improve their satisfaction on an ongoing basis
4. Make every effort to understand and be respectful of all stakeholders (buyer, suppliers, distributors etc) in our community and the cultures they are from
Ethical digital advertising
Many digital media companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have tracking technologies in order to profile, track and target users online so that paying advertisers can reach their exact audience, this can impact individual’s privacy, these technologies along with the attitudes of consumers is ever changing and what is considered ethical will shift many times over the short and long term.
Our approach to ethical marketing considers the following:
• We will not falsely advertise our products and services, we will remain honest and transparent
• We will only use pop ups, pop unders and modal windows when they offer clear value, we will limit their use and allow people to opt out, they will also be easy to close Ethical search engine optimisation (SEO)
Many SEO and content marketing tactics are considered to be manipulative and unethical. Any tactics considered as manipulative or unethical are typically referred to as “black hat” tactics and you’ll find ethical or “white hat” SEO tactics based on providing valuable and useful content that aligns with what users and search algorithms are looking for.
We aim to:
• Focus on value and create content that aligns with our mission
• Create partnerships to build links
• Use proper redirects to help people find the right content
We will avoid:
• Using software or online bots to build links
• Hiding content or links so that search engines can see them
• Paying for links from other websites, opting for building relationships and partnerships
• Plagiarising of content
• Misdirection/redirecting people away from content to pages focused more on sales
GDPR Compliance
We commit to being GDPR compliant. At Faversham House we are committed to protecting and using your personal data fairly and transparently in accordance with all applicable data protection regulation. As we are the organisation that determines how and why this data is used, we are classed as the ‘Data Controller’ for the data we collect.
Environment
We acknowledge that our day-to-day business practices do have some environmental impact and we are committed to managing these. We aim to be a responsible corporate citizen that leads by example when it comes to protecting the environment.
We use our carbon footprint to understand the sources of our emissions, wastes and impacts. These arise from three broad areas: our office and own business practices, running our events and producing our print and digital publications.
We will therefore manage our processes, our materials and our people to reduce the negative environmental impacts associated with our work and contribute to positive environmental improvements. We seek absolute reductions in environmental impacts as well as relative improvements.
Training & Communication
Faversham House will provide regular ethical marketing training to all relevant team members. Team members and senior management have created this Policy and own it. We will publish this Policy via our company and brand websites and on our shared online portal. The Head of Brand Marketing and the Head of Exhibitions Marketing will ensure any new team members where this Policy is relevant to their operational responsibilities have agreed to this Policy and attended training as part of their induction process. Faversham House will communicate this policy to all third parties at the outset of any business relationship as appropriate.