The Ethics of Marketing Healthcare Services and Pharma Products During the Pandemic

Abstract

The early days of the COVID-19 pandemic was a time of crisis filled with fear and confusion among marketing professionals as well as consumers. With the stay-at-home orders and resulting changes in consumer behaviors, marketers, including healthcare service providers and pharma product companies, changed their messaging and advertising outreach strategies. But was it even ethical for healthcare service providers and pharma product companies to market their services and products during this period of fear and confusion? In the following article, the authors review many of the changes in the management, strategies, and messaging of integrated marketing communications for healthcare services and pharma companies during the pandemic as well as the ethical considerations resulting from these changes. The article concludes with recommendations on how to ethically market healthcare services and pharma products during future pandemics.