Ethical issues of global marketing: avoiding bad faith in visual representation

This paper examines visual representation in marketing communication from a distinctive, interdisciplinary perspective that draws on ethics, visual studies and critical race theory. An ontological approach is offered as an alternative to phenomenologically based approaches in marketing scholarship that use consumer responses to generate data. Suggests ways to clarify complex issues of representational ethics in marketing by applying a semiotically‐based analysis that places ontological identity at the center of societal marketing concerns. Analyzes representations of the exotic Other in disparate marketing campaigns, including advertising, tourist promotions and music, as examples of bad faith marketing strategy. Music is an important force in marketing communication, yet marketing studies have rarely considered music and its visual representations as data for inquiry. Feels that considering visual representation within marketing from an ontological standpoint contributes additional insight into societal marketing and places global marketing processes within the intersection of ethics, aesthetics and representation.