Ethical Marketing at KMC  

As a company, we at KMC Solutions believe that all marketing efforts should provide genuine value to the intended target audience in order to properly earn their attention and trust. This is why our strategies have been built on the fundamental principle that believes marketing should not exploit any personal data or confidential information. Our policy statement adheres to a strict code of conduct that KMC follows, as well as the commitments we've made to guarantee that our work meets or exceeds the industry's highest ethical standards. 

Commitment to Honest Marketing 

As ethical marketers, we pledge to be completely honest in our marketing, both for our own campaigns and for projects driven by customers and partners. 

We commit to: 

• Never practice deceptive marketing tactics for both ours and our own client’s marketing campaigns, including: 

• False advertising by exaggerating the values and benefits of our products and services 
• False or excessively doctored testimonials 
• Inflated analytics or results when creating materials for advertising 

• Never only use specific data points in marketing and communications that aren't representative of our overall impact. 
• Never withhold negative information or data solely to protect KMC’s image. 
• Only use words that accurately describe the items, services, or impact we're marketing.

Reflections to live by 

It takes discipline, dedication, grit, and at times internal conflict to ensure that we are marketing in the most honest way possible. To help guide our campaign strategy and execution, we ask ourselves these questions: 

• Are we effectively expressing the value of our product or service to our target audiences without exaggerating or misleading them? 
• Are we communicating the features and benefits of our products and services in a clear manner? 
• Are we accurately quoting our customers, partners, and team when we share reviews or testimonials? 
• Is our use of statistics and examples when touting the features, benefits, or impact of our products and services honest and accurate? 
• Is there any internal pressure from team members or your company's leadership to publish false information in your marketing and communications? If this is the case, we will withdraw from the project.

Commitment to Rejecting Impact Washing 

Impact washing, like greenwashing, occurs when a company exaggerates its positive impact in order to obtain a marketing advantage, or when a company employs "feel good" marketing to hide or deflect from bad consequences of its main business model in other areas – socially or environmentally. 

Impact washing is a broad topic that includes: 

• Exaggerating impact numbers and data through inflation 
• Conveying false promises unrealistic claims about the product’s results 
• Falsely using emotional stories that aren't representative of total impact   
• Exaggerating a product's social benefits while downplaying its negative environmental or social impacts.

We continue to uphold honest marketing by pledging that: 

• We are clear and transparent about the social and environmental impact of our work 
• Examine marketing and communications strategies to ascertain we are not engaging in impact washing. 

Commitment to Ethical Digital Marketing 

Every type of marketing content falls somewhere along the spectrum, ranging from deceptive and dishonest to accurate, ethical, and truthful. KMC Solutions is dedicated to ensuring that the material we support through digital advertising is accurate and ethical.  

We believe that all advertisements should portray a truthful and honest representation of the product or business they are representing. We do not exaggerate claims of performance, nor do we exaggerate benefits to clients. We remain committed to providing our clients with an ethical and amicable solution for their marketing needs. 

Digital advertising brings its own unique set of ethical issues related to data privacy. Facebook, Google, and many other digital media companies have developed sophisticated tracking technologies in order to understand, profile, track, and target users online so that advertisements can reach their exact target audience.  

In order to support an ethical digital marketing discussion, data privacy should be a primary concern. Now what exactly does data privacy entail? Data privacy is a multifaceted topic that involves many aspects of user data and the implications of how advertisers collect data from their consumers. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has since published principles for data brokers – these principles will help digital marketers understand their current data collection practices as well as serve as a foundation for coming up with improved data collection standards. 

KMC as an organization commits itself to accurate and ethical digital marketing content that requires true transparency between consumer and advertiser. We, as digital marketers should not exaggerate claims about our products or services, nor misrepresent our product offerings in any way to entice consumers. In addition to being transparent, we also commit to being digitally transparent – this means that digital marketers should disclose data collection practices and data retention policies. We continue to give consumers a way to opt out, change preferences, and update data as necessary. 

To avoid data privacy mishaps, digital marketers must ensure that they are able to track data so they can measure performance and understand what methods work best for their businesses. However, effective tracking is only possible when data privacy efforts are in line with FTC principles as well as community standards such as those put forth by the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA).