The nonprofit, serving to help and serve those with breast cancer, attempted a foray into “cause marketing” with the sole focus of benefiting both partners, ”without taking into account the concerns and inevitable conflicts of interests addressed by publics.”

While the organization is synonymous as the leading nonprofit advocating for breast cancer research and overall awareness, they “outweighed its response to what it represents,” with such an ethical faux pas leading to “discussion groups include links to anti-SGK websites, cancer awareness websites, rivals of SGK, and links to petitions.”

The ultimate goal for brands is to proactively engage their publics with long-term relationships, seeking a “continuous and mutually beneficial exchange” in communication. Yet despite this, SGK unintentionally took the perspective of “more money for our cause is all the matters, never mind the health implications for our supporters.”

Steiner’s ethic of care states that successful nonprofit communication can be “achieved by communicators showing respect for the dignity and integrity of the audience members, a motivation absent in propaganda.”

As marketers, we must ensure that all of our communication channels undergo quality assurance checks for consistency and reliability, as advocacy communications must “avoid creating messages that are erroneous, misleading, or incomplete in ways that prevent the public from knowing details necessary for informed decision making.”

It is vital for marketers to handle the nonprofit sector at a somewhat higher regard given their objectives to help needed and less-fortunate communities. This sector has intricacies all their own, unlike those found in the private sector, and it's up to us to be able to take into account how influential they are to the publics they serve.