p. 600
PPT 20-6
PPT 20-7
p. 600
PPT 20-8
p. 600
p. 601
PPT 20-9
p. 601
Identify the major social criticisms of marketing
SOCIAL CRITICISMS OF MARKETING
Marketing’s Impact on Individual Consumers
Consumer advocates, government agencies, and other
critics have accused marketing of harming consumers
through high prices, deceptive practices, high-pressure
selling, shoddy or unsafe products, planned obsolescence,
and poor service to disadvantaged consumers.
High Prices
Many critics charge that the American marketing system
causes prices to be higher than they would be under more
“sensible” systems. They point to three factors—
distribution, advertising and promotion, and markup.
High Costs of Distribution. A long-standing charge is that
greedy channel intermediaries mark up prices beyond the
value of their services.
How do resellers answer these charges? They argue that
intermediaries do work that would otherwise have to be
done by manufacturers or consumers.
High Advertising and Promotion Costs. Modern market-
ing is accused of pushing up prices to finance heavy
advertising and sales promotion.
Excessive Markups. Critics charge that some companies
markup goods excessively.
Marketers respond that most businesses try to deal fairly
with consumers because they want to build customer
relationships and repeat business.
Deceptive Practices
Deceptive practices fall into three groups:
1. Pricing
2. Promotion
3. Packaging
Learning Objective
2
p. 600
Photo: Claritin
p. 601
Photo: Deceptive
advertising
PPT 20-10
p. 602
PPT 20-11
p. 602
PPT 20-12
p. 602
PPT 20-13
Deceptive pricing includes practices such as falsely
advertising “factory” or “wholesale” prices or indicating a
large price reduction from a phony high retail list price.
Deceptive promotion includes practices such as
misrepresenting the product’s features or performance, or
luring the customers to the store for a bargain that is out of
stock.
Deceptive packaging includes exaggerating package
contents through subtle design, using misleading labeling,
or describing size in misleading terms.
The Wheeler-Lea Act gives the Federal Trade Commission
(FTC) power to regulate unfair or deceptive acts or
practices.”
“Puffery” is defined as innocent exaggeration for effect.
High-Pressure Selling
In most cases, marketers have little to gain from
high-pressure selling.
Such tactics may work in one-time selling situations for
short-term gain. However, most selling involves building
long-term relationships with valued customers.
Shoddy, Harmful, or Unsafe Products
Typical product complaints:
Products are not made well and services are not
performed well.
Product safety may occur due to company
indifference, increased product complexity, and poor
quality control.
Many products deliver little benefit, or they might
even be harmful.
Planned Obsolescence
Critics also have charged that some companies practice
planned obsolescence, causing their products to become
obsolete before they actually should need replacement.
p. 602
Photo: Harmful
products, soft drink
p. 603
PPT 20-14
p. 603
If products don’t wear out fast enough, then companies are
charged with perceived obsolescence, changing consumer
concepts of acceptable styles to encourage more and earlier
buying.
Marketers respond that consumers like style changes; they
get tired of the old goods and want a new look in fashion.
Or, they want the latest high-tech innovations, even if older
models still work.
Poor Service to Disadvantaged Consumers
The American marketing system has been accused of
serving disadvantaged consumers poorly.
Critics accuse major chain retailers of “redlining,” drawing
a red line around disadvantaged neighborhoods and
avoiding placing stores there.
For example, the nation’s poor areas have 30 percent fewer
supermarkets than do affluent areas. As a result, some 23.5
million Americans—including 6.5 million children—live in
low-income areas that lack stores selling affordable and
nutritious foods.
p. 603
Photo: Underserved
consumers
Assignments, Resources
Use Marketing by the Numbers here
Use Additional Projects 1, 2, and 3 here
Use Think-Pair-Share 3 here
Troubleshooting Tip
Unless a university is in an urban area, most
students will be surprised that many large retailers
stay away from disadvantaged neighborhoods, and
that banks and insurance companies might
discriminate against customers living in these areas.
Even at urban universities this could be cause for
surprise because most urban schools are not located
in the truly disadvantaged areas. A discussion on the
pros and cons of, say, a Walmart or a major grocery
retailer locating in an inner-city neighborhood can
aid in the comprehension of the risks and rewards
for the company, as well as for the consumers.
p. 604
PPT 20-15
Marketing’s Impact on Society as a Whole
False Wants and Too Much Materialism
p. 605
PPT 20-16
p. 605
PPT 20-17
p. 606
PPT 20-18
Critics have charged that the marketing system urges too
much interest in material possessions.
People are judged by what they own rather than by who
they are.
Marketers respond that these criticisms overstate the power
of business to create needs.
Too Few Social Goods
Business has been accused of overselling private goods at
the expense of public goods.
A way must be found to restore a balance between private
and public goods. Options include:
Making producers bear the full social costs of their
operations, or
Making consumers pay the social costs.
Cultural Pollution
Critics charge the marketing system with creating cultural
pollution.
Marketers answer the charges of “commercial noise” with
these arguments:
Because of mass-communication channels, some ads
are bound to reach people who have no interest in
the product and are therefore bored or annoyed.
Ads make much of television and radio free to users
and keep down the costs of magazines and
newspapers.
Today’s consumers have alternatives.
Marketing’s Impact on Other Businesses
Critics charge that a company’s marketing practices can
harm other companies and reduce competition.
Three problems are involved:
p. 604
Photo: Materialism
p. 606
Photo: Cultural
pollution
1. Acquisitions of competitors
2. Marketing practices that create barriers to entry
3. Unfair competitive marketing practices
Review Learning Objective 2: Identify the major social
criticisms of marketing.
p. 607
Photo: Google
Assignments, Resources
Use Discussion Question 20-2 here
Use Additional Project 4 here
p. 607
PPT 20-19
p. 607
PPT 20-20
p. 607
p. 607
PPT 20-21
Define consumerism and environmentalism and explain
how they affect marketing strategies.
CONSUMER ACTIONS TO PROMOTE
SUSTAINABLE MARKETING
Consumerism
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 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 any buying incentive programs,
provided they are not unfair or misleading.
Traditional buyers’ rights include:
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
Learning Objective
3
p. 607
Key Term:
Consumerism
p. 607
PPT 20-22
p. 608
PPT 20-23
PPT 20-24
claimed.
Consumer advocates call for the following additional
consumer rights:
The right to be well informed about important
aspects of the product.
The right to be protected against questionable
products and marketing practices.
The right to influence products and marketing
practices in ways that will improve the “quality of
life.”
The right to consume now in a way that will
preserve the world for future generations of
consumers
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is an organized movement of concerned
citizens, businesses, and government agencies to protect and
improve people’s living environment.
The first wave of modern environmentalism in the United
States was driven by environmental groups and concerned
consumers in the 1960s and 1970s.
The second environmentalism wave was driven by federal
government, which passed laws and regulations during the
1970s and 1980s governing industrial practices impacting
the environment.
The third environmentalism wave is a merging of the first
two waves in which companies are accepting more
responsibility for doing no harm to the environment.
More and more companies are adopting policies of
environmental sustainability.
Figure 20.2 shows a grid that companies can use to gauge
their progress toward environmental sustainability.
Pollution prevention involves eliminating or minimizing
waste before it is created.
Product stewardship involves minimizing not just pollution
from production and product design but all environmental
p. 608
Photo: Consumer’s
desire for more
information
p. 608
Key Term:
Environmentalism
p. 608
Key Term:
Environmental
sustainability
p. 609
Photo:
Environmental
sustainability,
PPT 20-25
PPT 20-26
impacts throughout the full product life cycle, and all the
while reducing costs.
Design for environment (DFE) and cradle-to-cradle
practices involve thinking ahead to design products that are
easier to recover, reuse, or recycle and developing programs
to reclaim products at the end of their lives.
New clean technology. Many organizations that have made
good sustainability headway are still limited by existing
technologies. To create fully sustainable strategies, they will
need to develop innovative new technologies.
A sustainability vision 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.
The “beyond greening” activities identified in Figure 20.2
look to the future.
adidas
p. 609
Figure 20.2: Then
Environmental
Sustainability
Portfolio
p. 610
Photo: Chipotle
p. 612
Photo: The North
Face
Assignments, Resources
Use Real Marketing 20.1 here
Use Discussion Question 20-3 and 20-4 here
Use Additional Project 5 here
Use Small Group Assignment 1 here
Use Individual Assignment 1 here
Use Think-Pair-Share 4 here
Troubleshooting Tip
Consumerism and environmentalism are two
important concepts for students. It is unlikely that
either of these movements will disappear any time
soon, and because the internet has made so much
information available to so many, these issues will
likely only become more in the forefront of
consumers’ minds. Product recalls have become
commonplace, but it is worth discussing any recalls
that have affected students. Comparing the number
of recalls today to the number in the 1960s and
1970s will also help. As for environmentalism, it can
be useful to ask how many students have traveled to
cities in other countries where the pollution controls
are not as stringent as in the United States. Also,
discuss how your own university recycles.
p.
612-613
PPT 20-27
Public Actions to Regulate Marketing
Many of the laws that affect marketing are listed in Chapter
3.
The task is to translate these laws into the language that
marketing executives understand as they make decisions.
Review Learning Objective 3: Define consumerism and
environmentalism and explain how they affect marketing
strategies.
p. 613
Figure 20.3: Major
Marketing Decision
Areas That May Be
Called Into
Question Under the
Law
Assignments, Resources
Use Outside Example 1 here
p. 613
PPT 20-28
p. 613
PPT 20-29
p. 613
PPT 20-30
PPT 20-31
Describe the principles of sustainable marketing.
BUSINESS ACTIONS TOWARD SUSTAINABLE
MARKETING
Sustainable Marketing Principles
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
Consumer-oriented marketing means that the company
should view and organize its marketing activities from the
consumer’s point of view.
Only by seeing the world through its customers’ eyes can
the company build lasting and profitable customer
relationships.
Customer-Value Marketing
Customer-value marketing means the company should put
most of its resources into customer value-building
marketing investments.
By creating value for consumers, the company can capture
value from consumers in return.
Learning Objective
4
p. 613
Key Terms:
Consumer-oriented
marketing,
Customer-value
marketing
p. 614
PPT 20-32
PPT 20-33
p. 615
p. 615
PPT 20-34
Innovative Marketing
Innovative marketing requires that the company
continuously seek real product and marketing
improvements.
Sense-of-Mission Marketing
Sense-of-mission marketing means that the company
should define its mission in broad social terms rather than
narrow product terms.
Societal Marketing
Societal marketing means a company makes marketing
decisions by considering consumers’ wants and interests,
the company’s requirements, and society’s long-run
interests.
Products can be classified according to their degree of
immediate consumer satisfaction and long-run consumer
benefit. (Figure 20.4)
Deficient products have neither immediate appeal
nor long-run benefits.
Pleasing products give high immediate satisfaction
but may hurt consumers in the long run.
Salutary products have low appeal but may benefit
consumers in the long run.
Desirable products give both high immediate
satisfaction and high long-run benefits.
Review Learning Objective 4: Describe the principles of
sustainable marketing.
p. 614
Key Terms:
Innovative
marketing,
Sense-of-mission
marketing
p. 614
Photo: Amazon
p. 615
Key Terms: Societal
marketing
p. 615
Figure 20.4:
Societal
Classification of
Products
p. 615
Key Terms:
Deficient products,
Pleasing products,
Salutary products,
Desirable products
p. 615
Ad: method
p. 616
Ad:
Sense-of-mission
marketing, CVS
Health
Assignments, Resources
Use Real Marketing 20.2 here
Use Video Case here
Use Discussion Question 20-5 here
Use Critical Thinking Exercises 20-6 and 20-7 here
Use Small Group Assignment 2 here
Troubleshooting Tip
The concepts of sustainable marketing should not be
difficult to understand; however, you should go
through them carefully. Consumer-oriented market-
ing should certainly not be new, but the term will be.
p. 617
PPT 20-35
PPT 20-36
PPT 20-37
p. 620
PPT 20-38
PPT 20-39
Explain the role of ethics in marketing
MARKETING ETHICS AND THE SUSTAINABLE
COMPANY
Marketing Ethics
Corporate marketing ethics policies are broad guidelines
that everyone in the organization must follow.
What principle should guide companies and marketing
managers on issues of ethics and social responsibility?
One philosophy is that such issues are decided by the free
market and legal system.
A second philosophy puts responsibility not on the system
but in the hands of individual companies and managers.
Written codes and ethics programs do not ensure ethical
behavior.
The Sustainable Company
Sustainable companies are those that create value for
customers through socially, environmentally, and ethically
responsible actions.
Sustainable marketing provides the context in which
companies can build profitable customer relationships by
creating value for customers in order to capture value from
customers in return, now and in the future.
Review Learning Objective 5: Explain the role of ethics in
marketing.
Learning Objective
5
p. 618
Table 20.1: Some
Morally Difficult
Situations in
Marketing
p. 619
Photo: Google
Assignments, Resources
Use Discussion Question 20-5 here
Use Critical Thinking Exercise 20-8 here
Use Online, Mobile, and Social Media Marketing
here
Use Marketing Ethics here
Use Company Case here
Use Additional Project 6 here
Use Individual Assignment 2 here
Use Think-Pair-Share 5 here
Use Outside Example 2 here