Chapter 16: Sustainable Marketing: Social Responsibility and Ethics Flashcards
The marketing concept
is a philosophy of customer value and mutual gain. Its practice leads the economy by an invisible hand to satisfy the many and changing needs of consumers.
recognizes that organizations thrive by determining the current needs and wants of target customers and fulfilling them more effectively and efficiently than competitors do.
Sustainable marketing
socially and environmentally responsible actions that meet the present needs of consumers and businesses while also preserving or enhancing the ability of future generations to meet their needs.
societal marketing concept
considers the future welfare of consumers
strategic planning concept
considers future company needs
sustainable marketing concept
considers both slides 4 + 5
High Prices
Many critics charge that the marketing system causes prices to be higher than they would be under more “sensible” systems.
Deceptive Practices
Marketers are sometimes accused of deceptive practices that lead consumers to believe they will get more value than they actually do.
Deceptive practices fall into three groups:
promotion, packaging, and pricing.
Deceptive promotion
includes practices such as misrepresenting the product’s features or performance or luring customers to the store for a bargain that is out of stock
Deceptive packaging
includes exaggerating package contents through subtle design, using misleading labelling, or describing size in misleading terms
Deceptive pricing
includes practices such as falsely advertising “factory” or “wholesale” prices or a large price reduction from a phony high retail “list price.”
puffery
innocent exaggeration for effect
High-Pressure Selling
Salespeople are sometimes accused of high-pressure selling that persuades people to buy goods they had no thought of buying. It is often said that insurance, real estate, and used cars are sold, not bought
Shoddy, Harmful, or Unsafe Products
Another criticism concerns poor product quality or function. One complaint is that, too often, products and services are not made well or do not perform well. A second complaint concerns product safety.
Planned Obsolescence
Critics also have charged that some companies practise planned obsolescence, causing their products to become obsolete before they actually should need replacement.
perceived obsolescence
continually changing consumer concepts of acceptable styles to encourage more and earlier buying.
Poor Service to Disadvantaged Consumers
Finally, the Canadian marketing system has been accused of poorly serving disadvantaged consumers. For example, critics claim that the urban poor often have to shop in smaller stores that carry inferior goods and charge higher prices
Critics also charge that a company’s marketing practices can harm other companies and reduce competition. They identify three problems:
acquisitions of competitors, marketing practices that create barriers to entry, and unfair competitive marketing practices
Consumerism
is an organized movement of citizens and government agencies to improve the rights and power of buyers in relation to sellers
Traditional sellers’ rights include the following:
The right to introduce any product in any size and style, provided it is not hazardous to personal health or safety, or, if it is, to include proper warnings and controls
The right to charge any price for the product, provided no discrimination exists among similar kinds of buyers
The right to spend any amount to promote the product, provided it is not defined as unfair competition
The right to use any product message, provided it is not misleading or dishonest in content or execution
The right to use buying incentive programs, provided they are not unfair or misleading
Traditional buyers’ rights include the following:
The right not to buy a product that is offered for sale
The right to expect the product to be safe
The right to expect the product to perform as claimed
Environmentalism
is an organized movement of concerned citizens, businesses, and government agencies designed to protect and improve people’s current and future living environment.
environmental sustainability
is about generating profits while helping to save the planet
pollution prevention
This involves more than pollution control—cleaning up waste after it has been created. Pollution prevention means eliminating or minimizing waste before it is created.
product stewardship
minimizing not only pollution from production and product design but also all environmental impacts throughout the full product life cycle while at the same time reducing costs.
design for environment (DFE) and cradle-to-cradle practices
This involves thinking ahead to design products that are easier to recover, reuse, recycle, or safely return to nature after usage, thus becoming part of the ecological cycle.
sustainability vision
which serves as a guide to the future. It shows how the company’s products and services, processes, and policies must evolve and what new technologies must be developed to get there.
Under the sustainable marketing concept, a company’s marketing should support the best long-run performance of the marketing system. It should be guided by five sustainable marketing principles:
consumer-oriented marketing, customer value marketing, innovative marketing, sense-of-mission marketing, and societal marketing.
Consumer-Oriented Marketing
means that the company should view and organize its marketing activities from the consumer’s point of view. It should work hard to sense, serve, and satisfy the needs of a defined group of customers—both now and in the future.
Customer Value Marketing
the company should put most of its resources into customer value–building marketing investments.
Innovative Marketing
requires that the company continuously seek real product and marketing improvements. The company that overlooks new and better ways to do things will eventually lose customers to another company that has found a better way.
Sense-of-Mission Marketing
means that the company should define its mission in broad social terms rather than narrow product terms.
Societal Marketing
a company makes marketing decisions by considering consumers’ wants, the company’s requirements, consumers’ long-run interests, and society’s long-run interests
Deficient products
such as bad-tasting and ineffective medicine, have neither immediate appeal nor long-run benefits.
Pleasing products
give high immediate satisfaction but may hurt consumers in the long run. Examples include cigarettes and junk food
Salutary products
have low immediate appeal but may benefit consumers in the long run, for instance, bicycle helmets or some insurance products.
Desirable products
give both high immediate satisfaction and high long-run benefits, such as a tasty and nutritious breakfast food.
corporate marketing ethics policies
broad guidelines that everyone in the organization must follow. These policies should cover distributor relations, advertising standards, customer service, pricing, product development, and general ethical standards.
Excerpts from Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice of the Canadian Marketing Association (CMA)
On this chapter
marketing ethics and sustainable company
triple bottom line:
people, planet, profits
