Marketing as a social good

Marketing has been a cultural staple for the last century. Via print, television, radio, and, increasingly, online venues, corporations compete to capture our attention (and our dollars). The marketing industry enjoyed perhaps its biggest PR campaign ever with the highly popular AMC series Mad Men, but the industry still carries a bad rap.

Are marketing campaigns like Patagonia’s “Don’t Buy This Jacket” campaign social goods, or just greenwashing? Image from www.rentvine.com.

Is marketing a social ill, or can it be a force for good? Verena E. Stoeckl and Marius K. Luedicke, researchers from the University of Innsbruck and City University London, respectively, set out to address these broad questions in a recent article in The Journal of Business Research. Stoeckl and Luedicke write that marketing satisfies customer wants needs, thereby providing value for employees, corporations, and other stakeholders. But they also acknowledge the many who claim that marketing practices can “produce more problems for consumers and environments than they solve.”

As examples, Stoeckl and Luedicke point out that some corporations promote products that are harmful to consumer health, “homogenize local communities,” and/or “conceal natural and human resource exploitation practices.”

Consumers have historically demonstrated strong resistance to marketing practices that they see as harmful. Advancements in technology have provided consumers with increasingly potent platforms from which to declare their distaste and mistrust of marketing perceived as disruptive or harmful.

For example, DVR technology allows consumers to skip through commercials they don’t wish to view and streaming subscription services enable consumers to avoid commercials entirely. Online, consumers employ free ad blocking services to avoid seeing advertisements, and freely vent frustration about corporations and marketing campaigns in online forums.

Corporations are acutely aware of backlash against marketing practices. One form of response comes via the rise of “positive marketing.” In another article in The Journal of Business Research, Ahir Gopaldas promotes a theory of “positive marketing.” Gopaldas defines positive marketing as “any marketing activity that creates value for the firm, its customers, and society.” The “and” is critical here, because positive marketing hinges on being productive on all three fronts, not just for the firm. Gopaldas points out that positive marketing is marketing “in its ideal form,” and is not necessarily the norm. But is positive marketing a convenient fiction?

Stoeckl and Luedicke also address positive marketing, describing it as a valid reaction to criticism and a response to “emerging moral demands” from consumers. Does that mean that positive marketing is just another gimmick? Not necessarily. Gopaldas cites the example of “activist executives” who promote positive marketing not to satisfy external pressures and counteract criticism, but rather to “express personal convictions.” For instance, a CEO who feels strongly about combating deforestation might create a positive marketing campaign around the issue in order to align his or her personal, altruistic agenda with company marketing efforts.

The problem, say Stoeckl and Luedicke, is that consumers have “learned not to blindly trust marketers’ promises,” and “tend to render even ostensibly positive marketing practices as purely instrumental for reaping profits.” Thus, even well-intentioned positive marketing campaigns can be met with strong resistance.

This doesn’t mean marketers should abandon positive marketing efforts. Even those met with resistance spark a dialogue about morality and ethics in marketing, and engaging consumers in that dialogue is critical to evolving the marketing industry and advancing the interests of corporations, consumers, and society at large. “In response to the accusation of marketing-induced human degeneration, marketers explore options for joining forces with critical consumers to advance a common socio-cultural agenda,” write Stoeckl and Luedicke. In other words, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Outdoor apparel and gear company Patagonia memorably invited consumers to “buy less” and be more conscious about whether or not they truly need the things they acquire. This message is counterintuitive coming from a retailer, but it resonated with many critics of traditionally capitalistic marketing efforts, and the campaign “gained significant media attention.”

So is marketing a social ill? The answer seems to be: it depends upon whom you ask. The emergence of positive marketing holds potential to align corporate, consumer, and societal interests, but it’s not without complications. Gopaldas points out that “positive marketing efforts are unlikely to address the structural roots of societal problems because they can contradict the profit motives of corporations.” He gives the example of PepsiCo responding to criticisms about plastic waste by cutting down on the amount of plastic used to produce their water bottles, but failing to point out to consumers that drinking tap water instead of bottled water would solve the plastic water bottle issue altogether. After all, PepsiCo still needs to sell bottled water in order to make a profit.

So there’s room for improvement. Gopaldas wants to use “creative thinking” and “big data” to envision innovations in positive marketing that none of us have thought of yet. (Is Don Draper available?)