Ethical issues, reference groups, communities and tribes Flashcards
Questionable marketing practices:
- Selling unsafe products
- “Detergent packets called a poison risk”
- Unfair pricing
- Price gouging: The seller hikes up the price to take advantage of short-term shortage or emergency circumstances.
- “Uber surged pricesduring the Sydney hostage crisis. It needs to do better”
- “Where and how you’re online shopping changes the prices you see”
-
Misinformation and deception
- Example, “bait and switch frauds”: A company advertises a cheap product, but when you go and buy it the product is sold out, and salesperson will try to sell you a more expensive product.
-
Intrusion and over-commercialism
- Advertising criticized for promoting materialism (beliefs that see acquisition of more and more products as route to life’s satisfaction).
Misleading Nissan ad:
- Truck couldn’t actually perform as shown in the ad - Cables hidden in the sand actually pull the dune buggy up the dune!
- Camera angles played with to make the dune steeper that it really was.
- Making it look like a YouTube video was also misleading.
“Special effects in ads can be entertaining, but advertisers can’t use them to misrepresent what a product can do” said Jessica Rich, director of the FTC’s bureau of consumer protection.
Protecting consumer privacy:
Domains of privacy as a consumer
- Our purchases,
- Our personal information (name, address, income etc…),
- Our financial information (credit history, credit card numbers…).
In-strore Tracking:
Goal: Have a customer walk into a department store and get a push notification on his/ her phone with a personalized offer.
Survey of 1,042 consumers (OpinionLab): 77% of respondents find in-store tracking unacceptable, and 81% said they don’t trust retailers to keep data private and secure.
- Part of the problem is the word “tracking”: No one would answer “yes” to the question: “Do you like having your every move tracked whenever you enter a store?”
BUT: It is what happens to us as we browse the web every day! Most consumers ok with the use of cookies online…
What is consumer misbehaviour?
Behavioural acts by consumers, which violate the generally accepted norms of conduct in consumption situations, and disrupt the consumption order.
Dark, negative side of the consumer.
- Acquisition of goods and services (compulsive buying, in-store abuse of staff, theft);
- Product misuse (excessive consumption of foods or alcohol…).
Deviant Acquisition Behaviour:
Consumer Misbehaviour in acquiring goods.
- Skipping payments/Late payments;
- Aggressive behaviour towards staff and other customers;
- Marketers need to provide clear guidance on how to behave in certain situations.
Deviant Acquisition Behaviour:
British police officers were called to stores across the UK as the Black Friday shopping frenzy imported from the United States brought surging crowds and fights over sharply discounted goods.
Deviant usage behaviour/ Excessive consumption
The obesity crisis (BMI above 30):
- Global obesity crisis first identified by World Health Organization in the 1990s.
- Rising worldwide, and most dramatically in urban settings.
- In the UK, 26% of adults and 16% of children are obese.
- In general, three factors responsible:
- Genetics;
- Sedentary Lifestyle;
- Dietary Habits.
The biasing Heath Halo of Fast-Food Restaurant Health Claims
If consumers switched from one of the burger chains to a place known for its healthy meals, they would lose weight, wouldn’t they?…
Researchers gave half of the participants a coupon for a Big Mac and the other half for a Subway sandwich.
- Calories in the Big Mac were estimated at 557 (actual calories: 600); calories in the Subway estimated at 439 (actual calories: 900!).
- In addition, those who were given the Big Mac coupon ordered fewer side orders and deserts (48 calories overall) than those given the Subway option (111 calories overall).
- Because Subway has healthy meal image, consumers underestimate calories in Subway meals, and overcompensate by ordering more side and drinks.
Important for fast food chains to indicate number of calories in each meal!
The three-factor model of ecological consumption:
- Environment as value: Consumer must believe that it is essential to preserve the health of the environment/ place it high up their value system.
- Perceived personal benefits and costs: Tangible (better health from organic eating) and intangible (satisfaction/ implementing value system) rewards.
- Social norms: What referents command or wish.
To convert attitude into behaviour, public infrastructures (availability recycling facilities) and marketplace solutions (wide availability of eco-friendly products) are needed.
Ecological comsumption may not be that simple:
“Saving the planet, for most people, it just sounds too enormous,” says Suzanne Shelton, CEO of Shelton Group, a sustainability- focused ad agency based in Knoxville, Tenn. “The questions that typical shoppers are asking, are ‘Is this good for my family?’ or ‘Will this help me save money?”
Consumer Behaviour and Green Products:
- The Green Gap: 80% of American shoppers claim to want to make more sustainable choices BUT 20% follow through consistently.
- Key to reaching mainstream consumers: Be sure that greener products never come at the cost of comfort or convenience!
- Frito-Lay took snack brand Sun Chips introduced a fully biodegradable bag, but those bags were noisy and crinkly — inconvenient: were removed from the market.
Consumer Behaviour and Green Products: Licensing effect
- “People go out with good intentions, buy an Energy Star product, but then use it more than they otherwise would have, so that they wind up consuming even more energy in the end.”
- Moral licensing: Giving ourselves permission to make a bad choice because we’ve previously made a good one.
Group Influences:
Reference Groups:
An actual or imaginary individual or group conceived as having significant relevance upon an individual ́s evaluations, aspirations or behaviour (Park and Lessig, 1977).
Deindividuation
Social loafing
Disclaimant groups:
- Group that we currently belong to or belonged to in the past but no longer want to associate ourselves with.
Examples: School friends going in different directions, or members of our dieting club we don’t want our friends to know about.
Dissociative or avoidance groups:
- Groups we have negative feelings towards and whom we avoid being associated with.
Example: Canadian Club positioning themselves away from metrosexuals.
Development of conformity:
Adoption of behaviour resulting from real or perceived pressure to comply with a person or group.
Asch conformity experiment:
Nearly 75% of the participants in the conformity experiments went along with the rest of the group at least once.
In control tests, less than 1% of cases resulted in mistakes being made
Consumer Tribes…
share a lifestyle and can identify with each other because of a shared allegiance to an activity or product. Individuals can belong to several tribes in which they may play different roles.
- Playful aspect of tribal consumption.
- One does not need to feel commitment or responsibility to the brand.
- Tribes are transient, emerge and grow but can disappear as members of the tribe keep changing.
- Does not dominate consumers’ lives, no strong moral obligation.
Consumption Communities:
Consumption communities are specific manifestations of tribes, much more defined and closely-knit.
Brand Community
A brand community is a specialized, non-geographically bound community, based on a structured set of social relations among admirers of a brand.
These brand communities exhibit three traditional markers of community: Shared consciousness, rituals and traditions, and a sense of moral responsibility.
Three markers of community
- Consciousness of kind: Most crucial marker of a community - Shared consciousness of belonging. Members feel an intrinsic connection to one another. Understanding of difference from non-members of the community.
- Shared rituals and traditions maintain shared history, culture and consciousness of the community and indoctrinate, memorize and celebrate behavioural norms and traditions.
- Sense of moral responsibility describes member’s committed feelings “of duty or obligation to the community as a whole, and to its individual members.” In times of threat, sense of moral responsibility guides and directs collective action.
Sacred and profane consumption (Belk):
- Sacred consumption refers to objects and events that are “set apart” from normal activities, and are treated with some degree of respect or awe.
- Profane consumption refers to those consumer objects and events that do not share the “specialness” of sacred ones.
Sacred items are not necessarily associated with religion.
Example: Elvis Presley is sacred in the eyes of his fans – Many go on a pilgrimage to his home Graceland (which is now a museum).
Consumptions Communities and Commercial Opportunities
Firms can
- Be aware of and monitor existing consumption communities.
- Support existing consumption communities by endorsing them and providing needed resources.
- Build their own consumption communities.
