Chapter 18 - Marketing, Society, Sustainability & Ethics

Question 1

What are three key topics in critical marketing?

Answer 1

• Marketing as manipulation
• Commodity fetischism
• Need and choice

Question 2

What does Marketing as manipulation imply?

Answer 2

Marketing serves itself rather than consumers, and support capitalist classes. Marketing has been said to manipulate target audiences without them understanding that they are manipulated. Framing is used to make the communications more persuasive; presenting persuasive communication and audiences interpreting that communication to assimilate into their existing understanding. Can become propaganda

Question 3

What does Commodity fetichism imply?

Answer 3

Based on Marx. Society is overly dominated by consumption and hence fetishises it (supreme importance of it). Workers became exploited for their labor and only got a small pay instead of a share of the revenue they generated. Consumption is worshipped.

Question 4

What does Need and Choice imply?

Answer 4

People in affluent societies seek more without gaining any long-term satisfaction from such consumption. Some customers are persuaded into purchasing offers that they don’t want or do not meet their requirements. The marketing system also distributes harmful products such as alcohol, tobacco and gambling services. The aggregate marketing system is thus without any care of whether it harms or not (amoral). It is made moral only by governmental/institutional decisions about regulations.

Question 5

What is sustainable economic development?

Answer 5

The development meets current generations’ needs without imposing constraints on the needs of future generations.

Question 6

What are the 3Es of sustainable marketing?

Answer 6

1. Ecological - marketing should not negatively impact upon the environment.
2. Equitable - marketing should not allow or promote inequitable social practices.
3. Economic - marketing should encourage long-term economic development instead of short-term economic development.

Question 7

What are focus points for sustainable marketers?

Answer 7

• Positioning: stimulating demand for recycled products/mindful consumption
• Supply chain management & develop propositions with all members in mind.
• Lengthen the horizon for return on investment

Question 8

What are the ideas that form the foundation for CSR initiatives?

Answer 8

• Corporations have responsibilities beyond profitable production
• Responsibilities involve helping to solve social problems, especially those that the organization helped to create
• Corporations have a broader constituency of stakeholders than shareholders alone
• Impacts of corporations go beyond simple marketplace transactions
• Corporations serve a wider range of human values that are not captured by solely focusing on economic values.

Question 9

What are the different types of ethics?

Answer 9

• Normative ethics. The rational enquiry into standards of right and wrong (norms).
• Social or religious ethics. What is right/wrong based on allegiance to something (god).
• Positive morality. Knowledge generally adhered to by a social group of individuals, concerning good/bad.
• Descriptive ethics. Study of the system of beliefs and practices of a social group, from a perspective outside that group.
• Meta-ethics. Philosophical enquiry that treats ethical concepts and belief systems as objects of philosophical enquiry in themselves.

Question 10

What are the American Marketing Association’s code for members’ actions?

Answer 10

• Do no harm. Continuously avoid harmful actions or omissions by having high ethical standards and adhering to applicable laws and regulations.
• Foster trust in the marketing system. Striving for good faith and fair dealings to contribute to efficiency of exchange processes.
• Embrace ethical values. Building relationships and enhancing consumer confidence in the integrity of marketing.

Question 11

What are the five general approaches of norms?

Answer 11

• Deontological ethics. Rightness is based on the codes of ethics.
• Teleological ethics. Rightness depends on the value of the consequences. Intention or good outcome.
• Managerial egoism. Pursuing one own’s interests = maximising shareholder value.
• Utilitarianism. An action is right if its performance is more productive of pleasure/happiness/welfare, or more preventive of pain, than alternatives. What benefits most people?
• Virtue ethics. Develop virtues with “right” character. Suitable internationally, applies to both western and eastern.