2. Learning Objectives
1. Overall: To Understand the Meaning of Marketing
Ethics and Social Responsibility.
2. To Learn About Potential Unethical Marketing
Practices Involving Targeting Especially Vulnerable
or Unaware Consumers.
3. To Learn How Marketers Can Ambush Consumers
with Unexpected Ads, Tinker with Their
Perceptions, and Mislead Them.
4. To Understand How Marketers Can Advance
Society’s Interests via Such Practices as Advocating
Social Benefits.
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3. Why Is the Sponsor of This Ad Criticizing McDonald’s,
and What Business Concept Did McDonald’s Ignore by
Using Trans Fats?
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4. McDonald’s Ignored Consumer’s Interests
and the Societal Marketing Concept.
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5. Societal Marketing Concept
“Marketers should endeavor to satisfy the needs
and wants of their target markets in ways that
preserve and enhance the well-being of
consumers and society as a whole, while
fulfilling the objectives of the organization”
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6. Exploitive Targeting
• Marketing to Children
• Overaggressive Promotion
• Selling Pharmaceuticals directly to consumers
• The perils of precision targeting
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7. Marketing to Children
• Guidelines by Children’s Advertising Review
Unit (CARU)
• Guidelines include:
– No misleading claims about product’s
performance or benefits
– Must not exploit children’s imagination
– Can not create unrealistic expectations
– Products must be shown in safe situation
– No encouragement of inappropriate behavior
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8. Annual Exposure by Category and
Program Type - Figure 16.2
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9. Discussion Questions
• Think back to when you were a kid.
– What products seemed more appealing in their ad
than in actuality. Why?
• As a student:
– What marketers try to sell you products that
might not be in your best interest?
– What marketing tactics do they use?
Copyright 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall Chapter Sixteen Slide 9
10. Overaggressive Promotion
• Recession due in
part to Americans’
rising credit and
easy credit to risky
groups
Copyright 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall Chapter Sixteen Slide 10
11. Selling Pharmaceuticals
Directly to Consumers
• Began in 1997
• Television, print, and
the Internet
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12. The Perils Of Precision Targeting
• Narrowcasting
– Directed messages to small audiences
– Data providers support the marketers with
information
• GPS
– Cell phones and cars
– Gives marketers your location
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13. Data Collection by Web Companies
Figure 16.3 – Part A
Copyright 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall Chapter Sixteen Slide 13
14. Data Collection by Web Companies
Figure 16.3 – Part B
Copyright 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall Chapter Sixteen Slide 14
15. Manipulating Consumers
• Forced exposure to advertising
• Tinkering with consumers’ perceptions
• Covert marketing
• Socially undesirable representations
• False or misleading advertising
Copyright 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall Chapter Sixteen Slide 15
16. Forced Exposure To Advertising
• Product placement
• Advertorials
• Infomercials
Copyright 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall Chapter Sixteen Slide 16
17. Tinkering With Consumers’ Perceptions
• Increased consumption from:
– Organization of merchandise
– Size of package
– Symmetry of display
– Perceived variety of display
• Store Environments
• Relative Pricing
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18. Covert Marketing
• Also called masked or stealth marketing
• Messages appear to be from independent
parties but are company driven.
• Disagreement as to whether they violate FTC
guidelines
Copyright 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall Chapter Sixteen Slide 18
19. A Typology of Masked Marketing
Practices Table 16.3
Practice Description
Posers (disguised Actors or salespeople who pretend to be ordinary people or
communicator) researchers conducting a survey to explain product benefits
and give potential consumers the chance to examine,
sample, or use a product.
Buzz and viral Recruitment of people to talk about products through free
marketing (disguised samples or discounts before the product is available to the
communicator) general public and suggestions on what to say and how to
approach people about the product. Some refer to this as
viral marketing when the contact with potential consumers
is done electronically.
Advertorials (disguised Advertisements that appear to be information from an
format) independent source, such as prepared television news
stories: infomercials that appear to be consumer television
shows; and print advertisements that appear to be editorial
content.
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20. A Typology Of Masked Marketing Practices
Table 16.3 (continued)
Practice Description
Disguised monitoring of Use of invisible metatags by a marketer or the sale of
queries via search priority by a search engine of the results from a particular
engines query when the results are not identified as biased.
Urgent ad-formation Advertisements that appear in the form of important
(disguised format) account information from firms with an existing business
relationship, government notices, sweepstakes prize
notices, or checks that are simply discount coupons.
Advertainment Product and advertising placement in television shows, at
(disguised format) sporting events, and in video games.
Copyright 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall Chapter Sixteen Slide 20
21. Discussion Questions
• Do you think covert marketing is wrong?
• Why might others have a different opinion
from you?
Copyright 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall Chapter Sixteen Slide 21
22. Socially Undesirable Representations
• Children’s Toys
– Barbie and G.I. Joe
• Thin models in the media
• Brands that promote violence
• Stereotypes
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23. False or Misleading Advertising
• Puffery
• Truth-in-advertising laws
• Deceptive advertising
• Corrective advertising
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24. Social Responsibility
• Advocating socially beneficial causes
• Cause-related marketing
• Green marketing
• Consumer ethics
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25. Advocating Socially Beneficial Causes
• Not-for-profits
• Government agencies
• Consumer advocacy groups
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26. What Is the Name and Meaning of the
Marketing Approach Featured in this Ad?
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27. Advocating Socially Beneficial Causes or
To Promote Socially Desirable Behaviors
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28. What Is the Ad’s Objective, and Why
Is the CSPI Sponsoring It?
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29. It is Aimed at Educating Consumers About Unhealthy
Products at School –
The CSPI is a Consumer Advocacy Group
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30. Cause-Related Marketing
• Contribute a portion of
revenues
• Good fit between cause
and company’s
positioning is important
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31. Green Marketing
• Promoting of healthy, reusable, and
ecofriendly products
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32. What Is the Name and Purpose of the Marketing
Practice Depicted in the Three Ads and How Did Each
of the Three Carmakers Featured Adopt This Practice?
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33. Green Marketing
Better Mileage Social Conscience Responsibility and Luxury
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34. Discussion Questions
• Do you make an effort to purchase green
products?
• If a product is better for the environment than
the alternative, are you more likely to
purchase the green product? Would you pay
more for the green product?
Copyright 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall Chapter Sixteen Slide 34
35. Measuring Consumers’ Attitudes Toward
Green Products – Table 16.4 (excerpt)
A Scale Measuring Consumers’ Attitudes Toward Green Products
I believe there are a lot of exaggerations about companies taking
environmental risks nowadays.
I believe the government is doing all that is possible to safeguard the
environment.
I believe that we should not slow down industry progress because of
concern for the environment.
I believe environmental safety is the responsibility of the government, not
individual citizens.
I believe that government legislation adequately regulates environmental
protection.
I believe a well-known brand is always a safe product to buy.
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36. Consumer Ethics
• Returning used product
• Software privacy
Copyright 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall Chapter Sixteen Slide 36
Here is an outline of the topics for Chapter Sixteen.
The marketing concept has been rewritten to the societal marketing concept which includes the welfare of consumers and the society. Many marketers, including McDonald’s, have been criticized by consumer groups for their marketing practices.
These are four topics worth further exploration under the topic of exploitive targeting or potentially unethical marketing practices to vulnerable consumer groups. This web link brings you to the Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU), which is discussed in the next slide. Review the site to get a better understanding of the guidelines in marketing to children.
Advertising to children is of particular concern because kids tend to imitate behavior and are not old enough to correctly process and evaluate the information they see. These guidelines are constantly under review and there has been a particular concern with advertising of food to children and increases in childhood obesity.
This figure shows the extensive targeting to kids across 12 product categories, including 8 types of food.
This might be the first time you have reflected back to when you were a child and analyzed the marketing tactics and approaches used by food and toy companies.
Credit became too easy for people to get – college students, homeowners, low-income groups were all high risk and have defaulted on much of their credit and loans, helping to cause the current recession.
Congress and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are very concerned with the increase in pharmaceutical use. This increase can be partly explained by pharmaceutical companies advertising directly to consumers.
As marketers acquire more information, there becomes an increased concern with privacy. On the one hand, consumers can receive better offers from marketers because they are more targeted but on the other hand, they are providing information unknowingly to marketers. This web link brings you to Google analytics. Explore this sight to see the potential of web analytics.
This figure shows several large websites and the information they have collected on their consumers.
This is a continuation of the previous slide.
As we learned in this class, marketers understand how consumers perceive and learn. This can be used to the advantage of marketers but sometimes not always with the best intentions. Here are five topics that will be explored which relate to manipulating consumers.
Consumers can be unaware that they are even watching a paid advertisement. This is often the case in product placement when a product is featured in a television show or movie. Advertorials are found in print media, whereas infomercials are commonly found on television and often look like documentaries.
There are a variety of tactics that marketers can use to change consumers’ perceptions. This is often done in pricing of products and product lines. Consumers tend to base pricing on a reference point that has been placed in their mind. Marketers can move this reference price up and consumers will often pay more for products. Supermarkets can use many tools in their stores to help marketers’ perception. End-of-aisle displays, product location, and store temperature will all have an effect on the consumer.
As consumers block out more messages, marketers look for alternative ways to market. Stealth marketing often uses posers, people of similar demographics, to market to people their own age. Liquor companies have sent people to bars and phone companies have couples masked as tourists asking people to use their phone to take a picture.
The next two slides present masked marketing practices.
You might find yourself disagreeing with classmates on whether covert and masked marketing are wrong.
Here is a selection of representations made by marketers in the media. There are many consumer groups who are pushing back on these portrayals and marketers are reacting to the requests. There does seem to be an increase in “healthy”-sized models and more careful planning in toy creation.
Puffery is often used in advertising. It is a general claim about a product – that it is wonderful, the best, important. Truth-in-advertising must be followed when an advertiser states specific claims about their ad. The FTC has careful guidelines as to what is deceptive advertising. If the FTC decides an advertiser has misled customers, they often have to spend the money to run corrective advertising.
Many companies are trying to become “good corporate citizens” and integrate social responsibility into their marketing plans and organizational goals. These are the four topics that will be discussed as they relate to corporate social responsibility.
Many organizations work to market socially beneficial causes. There are companies, government agencies, and consumer groups that all work to inform the public about products and services that are available to the public.
It seems that almost the majority of companies are involved in cause-related marketing. Sometimes organizations will even band together to fight a certain cause or disease.
Many industries have made great initiatives in offering green marketing. This ad highlights a car as the auto industry has made some strong efforts in offering green products. This web link brings you to a site that specializes in green home products. Look through their selections and decide how green you are.
You might differ from others in the class. Why do you think you are more or less green than your peers?
This is an example of a survey marketers would use to determine an individual’s attitude toward green products.
We have talked about the importance of ethical behavior by marketers but just as important is ethical behavior by consumers. What other unethical actions might consumers take?
