Designing and Explaining the Ethical Marketing Model of Food Products on Social Networks

Ethical marketing is more than a marketing strategy; it is a philosophy that affects all aspects of marketing. The main purpose of this study is to design and explain the ethical marketing model of food products in social networks.

The present study is mixed (qualitative-quantitative) in terms of applied purpose, in terms of approach, exploratory, and in terms of data analysis. In the qualitative part of the research, in order to design the model based on the methodology of content analysis. The statistical population was 16 Internet marketing and business professionals. Targeted sampling and snowball sampling were selected as the sample and data were collected through in-depth and semi-structured interviews. Data analysis was performed by coding method. In the quantitative part, social network users in Malayer city were considered as a community and among them, 385 people were selected as a statistical sample based on simple random sampling method. In this section, the main tools of data collection were closed and researcher-made questionnaires. Structural equation method with SPSS, Lisrel and smart PLS software was used for descriptive and inferential analysis.

The results led to the extraction of 93 initial concepts in the open coding stage, 34 final concepts and 14 themes. Thus, the ethical marketing model of food products in the country's social networks was designed and the hypothetical relationships of the model in a large community were tested and confirmed.

Today, the food industry in the world has grown a lot. Health in the food industry cannot be achieved except by relying on ethics and adhering to its principles for all levels of the enterprise from the factors of production to sales. According to the research results, among the businesses operating in this field, those who perform better and more ethically in applying new strategies in social networks will be in a better position in terms of achieving their goals