--Memo--

th
DATE: December 28 , 2013

TO: John Doe, Director of Communications Design, Music Streaming Service

FROM: Olivia Schneider, Lead Analyst for Growth

oschneider@zagmail.gonzaga.edu

SUBJECT: Request to immediately pull advertisement for

R. Kellys album, Black Panties

John, I have been an employee of Music Streaming Service for five years as Lead Analyst for
Growth. In this time, I have been working with my team to analyze our target markets in order to
grow public interest in our brand and better utilize your teams communication efforts. We have
seen great success over the past five years in building our following. However, I have noticed
that one of the artist-sponsored pop-up ads Music Streaming Service is currently running
threatens to stunt our growth in violating certain ethical codes of marketing. I am writing to
request a redaction of the R. Kelly Black Panties ad for a variety of reasons, all of which concern
my efforts with brand perception and growth. I am specifically referring to the American
Marketing Association and the Consumer Sovereignty Test in evaluating my concerns. I am also
writing to request that our teams work together to more carefully monitor future advertisements
that combine our musicians own marketing strategies with the Music Streaming Service logo.

I request that your communications team retract the R. Kelly Black Panties ad because of the
messages tasteless presentation. R. Kellys album cover violates dignity of the human person
through imagery depicting young, faceless women, scantily clad, their bodies heaped over each
other, and straddling the rapper. This image clearly promotes objectification of both race and
gender. Music Streaming Service is not responsible for R. Kellys choice in such dehumanizing
marketing, however, our brand name is stamped across the ad, drawing a direct correlation
between Music Streaming Service and R. Kellys message. This ad misrepresents Music
Streaming Service in the eyes of our consumers and violates ethical parameters in marketing. For
these reasons, we must pull R. Kellys pop-up immediately.

According to the American Marketing Associations (AMA) criteria for ethics, R. Kellys ad
fails five out of six areas of interest: honesty, responsibility, fairness, respect, and citizenship.
The most severe issue is respect. The AMA states that marketers will avoid stereotyping
customers or depicting demographic groups in a negative or dehumanizing way in promotions.
The link between Music Streaming Services brand and R. Kellys marketing malpractice
condones unacceptable behavior. This ad is dishonest because it presents images contradicting
Music Streaming Services mission. At Music Streaming Service, we aim to provide our
supporters with unlimited access to the music they love, anytime, anywhere. However, this goal
should never come at the expense of supporting messages, which promote a degradation of the
very people we serve. R. Kellys ad has the potential to create distrust in Music Streaming
Services consumers because of inconsistency. Our Music Streaming Service audience is diverse
in demographic, a fact which demands sensitivity. The needs of our consumers are various.
While we have an obligation to the promotion of our musician stakeholders, our customers must
come first in considering the best messages to uphold. Our social obligations must consider our
customers needs first. We also must recognize a commitment to the possibility of vulnerable
populations coming into contact with R. Kellys ad. There is the possibility of children viewing
the obscene advertisement and accepting inappropriate relationships between men and women
that do not promote a healthy society. This image also has the potential of being offensive,
especially to women, and even more directly, women of color. We have a duty to promote
messages, which respect the dignity of women and the respect every person deserves in our
society. Fairness is also called into question, with our mission conceptually conflicting with R.
Kellys tactics. We risk creating mixed messages for our audiences about Music Streaming
Services brand identity by allowing this ad to run with our brand attached. Our end goal must be
to uphold citizenship by following AMAs focus on contribut[ing] to the overall betterment of
marketing and its reputation. If this ad continues to run, we perpetuate a marketing concept
which does not better our work for ourselves and our constituents.

R. Kellys ad also holds issue with the Consumer Sovereignty Test (CST). While the ad is not
misleading with information, the consumers capability and choice in consumption are tested. As
I mentioned before, our duty as professionals is to be sensitive to the vulnerable demographics
we serve. The potential for harming perception in both women and children is high with this ad,
and therefore requires immediate action in protecting these groups. Though consumers are not
forced to listen to R. Kellys music, this pop-up cannot be avoided either, making exposure for
our audience unpredictable. A lack of censoring or choice to censor, limits our customers
autonomy. My qualm is not with R. Kellys music being played, or running an ad for the artist,
but rather that in this scenario, Music Streaming Service has chosen to promote such negative
behavior by putting our stamp of approval on the promotional.

John, I urge you to pull this ad immediately from our promotional pop-ups because it breaks
ethical standards required of us as marketers, goes against Music Streaming Services values,
and has the potential to offend the customers we are attempting to serve through music selection.
At Music Streaming Service, we aspire to make access to music infinite in variety, but this
image, with its blatant objectification and degradation affecting both racial and gender
minorities, only limits our company and our customers.

My suggestion for remedying our image would be to pull this advertisement and replace it with a
different image, provided by R. Kelly, explaining that while we will promote him as an artist, we
cannot show the image originally chosen in order to maintain sensitivity with our consumers.
R. Kelly will be able to choose a replacement image for the current pop-up, keeping in mind the
AMA and CST guidelines that Music Streaming Service abides by from here on out.

In moving forward on all promotional materials, I would like to hold a joint meeting with both
your communications team and my analyst team. At the meeting I would like to share this
example as reasoning for Music Streaming Service tightening advertisement requirements. We
must be careful about images that we promote from our 3rd parties, being cognizant of how our
brand name appears through the lens of our stakeholders exterior campaigns, which still directly
affect us in the eyes of consumers. For the next week, I suggest that you or I approve all
outgoing materials as our team members learn about new, ethical marketing practices at Music
Streaming Service. After training our teams, I suggest that future ad releases from artists with the
Music Streaming Service logo on them be compared to the AMA and CST before being
scheduled for release.

Thank you for taking the time to read my concerns and respond. Please contact me if you have
further questions. I know with some deeper consideration, we at Music Streaming Service can
succeed with keeping in mind sensitivity for our customers while still driving brand growth and
promotional needs.

Sincerely,
Olivia Schneider
Analyst for Growth
oschneider@zagmail.gonzaga.edu

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