The subject of branding, customer-brand relationships, brand equity strategies, and branding as a societal institution has become so controversial that an anti-branding movement has become widespread across several continents. This movement maintains that branding is not just problematic, but ethically wrong. This article uses the Hunt-Vitell theory of ethics to provide a framework for explicating people’s personal moral codes, which in turn, helps us to understand the ethical controversy over branding. The article (1) provides a brief discussion of the nature of branding, (2) identifies major arguments that support the view that branding is morally wrong, (3) overviews the H–V theory of marketing ethics, (4) explicates the H–V theory’s “personal moral codes” framework, and (5) shows how it provides a starting point for those who seek to understand, evaluate, and investigate the ethics of branding.

Introduction

Firms find it increasingly desirable to develop and promote their corporate and product-level brands, to use trademark laws to protect the equity in their brands, and to adopt what has come to be referred to as “brand equity strategy” (Aaker, 1991; Keller, 1998). Likewise, consumers find it increasingly desirable to develop relationships with brands, to become loyal to their favorite brands, and to participate in brand communities. Indeed, some consumers identify so strongly with particular brands that they become a part of consumers’ “extended selves” (Belk, 1988). Despite the growing importance of brands to both firms and consumers, the subject of branding as an organizational practice, customerbrand relationships, brand equity strategies, and branding as a societal institution has become so controversial that an anti-branding movement has become widespread across several continents (Holt, 2002; Johansson, 2004, 2006; Klein, 1999; Lasn, 2000). Underlying the rapidly developing, anti-branding movement is the view that, in some significant way, branding, consumer-brand relationships, brand equity strategies, and the societal institution of branding are not just problematic, but ethically wrong. Given that the anti-branding movement has an ethics component, it would seem that understanding the controversial nature of contemporary branding could benefit from understanding and applying formal, marketing ethics theory. The purpose of this article is to propose that a particular ethics theory, which has come to be known simply as the “Hunt-Vitell” theory of marketing ethics (Hunt & Vitell, 1986), can provide a starting point for explaining key aspects of the controversy surrounding the ethics of branding. Specifically, the thesis of this article is that the Hunt-Vitell (hereafter, H–V) theory provides a framework for explicating people’s personal moral codes, which in turn, helps us to understand the ethical controversy over branding. As to the structure of the article, it (1) provides a brief discussion of the nature of branding and how it promotes competition, (2) identifies some of the major arguments that support the view that branding is ethically wrong, (3) overviews the H–V theory of marketing ethics, (4) explicates the H–V theory’s “personal moral codes” framework, and (5) shows how the personal moral codes framework can provide a starting point for those who seek to understand, evaluate, and investigate the ethics of branding.