You are the director of operations for Lavender Lee, a women’s clothing store with ten locations. Lavender Lee began as a small business in a large city. The owner designed and produced a variety of dresses in whimsical patterns and fun colors. Lavender Lee has done very well since it opened five years ago and has now expanded to nine additional locations, plus does well in online sales.
There are now additional employees that also produce the clothing for the stores. The owner uses the revenue earned to pay employees well and to continue purchasing quality fabrics. This has left very little money for the owner to use for marketing. The majority of marketing is through social media which brings followers back to the Lavender Lee website which lists store locations and also allows customers to view and purchase merchandise.
Since there is little money for marketing, the owner has been the only model in photographs marketing the Lavender Lee merchandise.
The marketing specialist that manages Lavender Lee’s social media accounts and website feels that it is important for Lavender Lee to use other models besides the owner. The marketing specialist thinks it is important for models to be more diverse. The marketing specialist feels that there needs to be models of varying height, size, body shape, race, ethnicity, ability and age.
The owner claims that the business cannot afford to pay that many different models.
The marketing specialist wants to use AI generated models for use in modeling Lavender Lee’s merchandise on social media and on the website. The marketing specialist has asked you to determine if using AI diverse models rather than paying real life diverse models is ethical, speculate risks involved with using AI diverse models and with not using AI diverse models and the impact on others. If AI generated models are used, does the company have an ethical responsibility to provide that information on its website and social media?
The marketing specialist has also asked you if there are any other methods the business could gain diverse models.
