Social Responsibility, Consumerism, and the Marketing Concept

Name: Loo Zheng Xian, George 13th September 2011 Marketing Ethics: A Response to Roger Crisp Introduction In his article “Persuasive Advertising, Autonomy, and the Creation of Desire”, Roger Crisp discusses his views on the issue of persuasive advertising. His overarching argument is that persuasive advertising ‘overrides the autonomy of consumers’ and he concludes that ‘all forms of a certain common type of advertising (i.e. persuasive advertising) are morally wrong’. In my response to this article, I will adopt an ethical viewpoint towards my analysis of various points raised by Crisp. Viewing Crisp’s argument from a Kantian perspective, the deprivation of autonomy stemming from persuasive advertising would be deemed as unethical. From a

Ethical marketing refers to the application of marketing ethics into the marketing process. Ethical marketing is about making marketing decisions that are morally right. The ethics of the marketing decision can incorporate any part of marketing including sourcing of raw materials, staff employment and product advertising and pricing. Sound marketing ethics are usually those that result in consumer satisfaction, with no negative effect, with the goods and services being recognized or with the company producing them. Ethical marketing generally results in a more socially responsible and culturally thoughtful business community. The concern with ethical issues has changed the attitude of the world towards a more socially responsible way of thinking. This has influenced companies to market their products in a more socially responsible way.

Ethical marketing refers to the application of marketing ethics into the marketing process. Ethical marketing is about making marketing decisions that are morally right. The ethics of the marketing decision can incorporate any part of marketing including sourcing of raw materials, staff employment and product advertising and pricing. Sound marketing ethics are usually those that result in consumer satisfaction, with no negative effect, with the goods and services being recognized or with the company producing them. Ethical marketing generally results in a more socially responsible and culturally thoughtful business community. The concern with ethical issues has changed the attitude of the world towards a more socially responsible way of thinking. This has influenced companies to market their products in a more socially responsible way.

This case study analyzes the experiences of Courtland Kelley at General Motors (GM). Courtland Kelley a third generation GM worker put his job on the line by pushing the GM managers and executives to fully respond to the safety issues found while working as a safety inspector at the company. Kelley along with his supervisor Bill McAleer first discovered the issues while auditing GM cars at rail yards across the country, a spot check of vehicles before the cars were cleared to be delivered to the dealers. McAleer was taken off the audit as a result, who subsequently sued the company seeking whistle-blower protection. The case was eventually dismissed by a judge in favor of GM. The judgement only increased Kelley’s

Since the 1970s, non-mainstream marketing concepts have started challenging traditional mainstream marketing concepts. For example, traditional marketing strategies resulted in over-exploitation, waste of resources and enterprises ignored environment deterioration. Under such strategies, enterprises only concern profit but ignores harms to consumers’ health and destroys the balance of environment. Because of these, the marketing theoretical circle started a serious discussion on how to balance the relationship of business operation and environment protection. Many influential marketing theories were raised.

Ethics is generally defined as “the standard of behavior by which conduct is judged”. In other words, individuals execute actions in different ways based on their ethical beliefs which are obtained by their personal moral principles. While we usually associate this notion to people, it can also be used for businesses. The latter can judged by potential customers, other firms, and many other different actors. Marketing plays an essential role in communicating and building judgements regarding a particular company. It generally showcases a company’s beliefs and values. It upholds them to their social responsibilities.

In the metaphor the philosopher goes through many levels until he reaches the form of good.

Overall, the findings suggest that age plays little to no part in what form of environmental behavior one engages in, except for 2010. Age for that year was seen as a negative predictor of engaging in either behavior set. Income likewise was only found to be significant in the final year and only for green consumerism. This is what I expected to find; however, it was somewhat unexpected that income was not significant in any of the previous years for green consumerism given the behaviors reliance on having a disposable income. This finding may result because of how each construct was created and the use of different items, but it also may be that in past years there were fewer products that one could buy that were major income investments. With the creation of hybrid and all electric cars there are more options that require a larger investment than in past years. Thus, income may only now

Consumerism is seen as caustic in the eyes of many. The common trend seen among copious economists is that consumerism is evil and is corrupting the people partaking. The claim that consumerism is causing a global wide drop in happiness is ludicrous. In Rockwell’s essay “In Defense of Consumerism” he claims without consumerism there is no production, and without production there are no jobs, which ultimately leads to poverty and unhappiness. Over a couple centuries life expectancy has increased by almost 30 years due to advances of medicine and the availability of modern conveniences (Rockwell 640). This is all due to the increase consumption of superfluous items. Consumerism benefits society by stimulating the economy, providing necessities, and increasing life expectancy.

As a marketing professional, entrepreneur and teacher, I want to inspire students to master a broad range of marketing concepts. I want to demonstrate how marketing is used to sell products and services, persuade individuals and companies to change their behavior and to potentially change the world.

In this paper, I have researched to find out how this grant empire has become and remain so successful. I found out that one of the reasons is because it has been able to maintain the goals and standards that its owner, Mr. Sam Walton has built it upon. Even after his death, Wal-Mart continues to expand and grow in other countries. Wal-Mart is considered one of the top ten global companies today. Mr. Walton’s main goal was to sell products at a low price so that people could live a better life. Another reason is because Wal-Mart uses certain market mix strategies such as the four P”. These strategies, price, promotion, product and place.

Philosophy seemed to be the center of the majority of peoples lives Before the Common Era, yet today it also upholds just as much, if not more, importance to the normal person than of the ‘scientist’ or renowned ‘theorist.’ Philosophy makes people who they are, their own

This assignment will initially describe social marketing and then indicate how corporations affect stakeholders through companies’ social marketing and responsibility. Following that, the importance and functions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and social marketing will be demonstrated. Finally, it will explain how organizations reflect CSR and make a short conclusion to indicate the relationship between social marketing and CSR.

Place – Place is also very important in the terms of business because before opening the business they should consider the location properly that are they targeting the proper market according to their business. Place must be easy accessible for customers, suppliers etc.

Market research: ethical danger points in marketing research include: - Invasion of privacy – Stereotyping Market audience: ethical danger points include - targeting the vulnerable children, the elderly - Excluding potential customers from the market: selective marketing is used to discourage demand from undesirable market sectors or disenfranchise them altogether. Pricing ethics: list of unethical pricing practice: - Price fixing - Price skimming - Price discrimination - Price wars - Bid rigging - Dumping