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Chapter 15 Learning Objectives
15.1 To understand the meaning and importance
of marketing ethics and social responsibility.
15.2 To understand how marketers can exploit
consumers by targeting children and
encouraging overeating and other forms of
irresponsible buying.
15.3 To understand ethically questionable
practices such as covert marketing,
manipulative exposure to advertising, and truth-
in advertising issues.
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Chapter 15 Learning Objectives
15.4 To understand the nature and
consequences of provocative advertisements.
15.5 To understand how marketers abuse
consumers’ privacy and the measures that can
stop such practices.
15.6 To understand how marketers can advance
society’s interests by advocating socially
beneficial conduct and discouraging adverse
behavior.
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PETA (Non-Profit) Ads
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Learning Objective 15.1
15.1 To understand the meaning and importance
of marketing ethics and social responsibility.
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Societal Marketing Concept
Calls upon all marketers 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 also
fulfilling the profit objectives of their
organizations.
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Letter from Customer Advocacy Group
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Learning Objective 15.2
15.2 To understand how marketers can exploit
consumers by targeting children and
encouraging overeating and other forms of
irresponsible buying.
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Consumer Socialization
• Perceptual stage (3-7 years old)
• Analytical stage (7-11 years old)
• Reflective stage (11-16 years old)
Discussion Question:
At what point is it ethical for marketers to
communicate with children? Does it depend
on other factors besides age (e.g.
socioeconomic status; product category)?
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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
– Avoid ads that
• encourage children to pressure their parents to buy the
products advertised
• lead children to feel that ownership of a given product will make
them more accepted by peers
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Marketing Foods to Children
• Concern over link with obesity
• Voluntary restrictions to avoid legislation
• Rules opposed by the Obama administration
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Promoting Physical Activity
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Inspiring Overeating and Irresponsible
Spending
• Cold grocery stores
• Moving displays to encourage wandering
• Targeting online shoppers who have been
drinking
• Designing foods that encourage overeating
• Granting easy credit
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Packaging to Increase Consumption
• Short, wide glasses • Multiple offerings
• Clear candy jars • Minimal variations in
• Transparent sandwich serving bowl size
wrap • Not tracking
• Visible, aromatic food consumption
• Organized food • Large inventories
presentation • Bundling small
packages
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Nutritional Labeling
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Pharmaceutical Advertising
• Voluntary restrictions – Direct-to-Consumer
• Two-year moratorium proposed in Senate
• Online search engine complications (risk
information)
• Extending life of favorite products
Discussion Question:
What are the advantages and disadvantages of
marketing pharmaceuticals directly to
consumers?
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Learning Objective 15.3
15.3 To understand ethically questionable
practices such as covert marketing,
manipulative exposure to advertising, and truth-
in advertising issues.
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Manipulating Products and Messages
• Context effects, JND
• Covert marketing
• Product placement, advertorials and
infomercials
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Discussion Questions
• Do you think covert marketing is wrong?
• Why might others have a different opinion
from you?
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False or Misleading Advertising
• Puffery
• Truth-in-advertising laws
• Deceptive advertising; FTC guidelines
• Corrective advertising
• Promotional violations in drug marketing
– Unsubstantiated effectiveness claims
– Omitted risk information
– Unsubstantiated superiority claims
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Deceptive Claims
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Learning Objective 15.4
15.4 To understand the nature and
consequences of provocative advertisements.
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Provocative Marketing Examples
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Learning Objective 15.5
15.5 To understand how marketers abuse
consumers’ privacy and the measures that can
stop such practices.
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Privacy Issues
• Using Wi-Fi signals from smartphones to track
consumers in stores
• E-Scores: undisclosed digital calculations of
people’s buying power and value as consumers
• FTC “do not track” mechanism
• Regulation of data brokers
• Opt-in for monitoring
• Turquoise triangle
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Discussion Questions
• Should online privacy by self-regulated or
governed by legislation? Why or why not?
• Should stores be allowed to track your
emotions and behavior using your
smartphone? Why or why not?
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Learning Objective 15.6
15.6 To understand how marketers can advance
society’s interests by advocating socially
beneficial conduct and discouraging adverse
behavior.
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Advocating Beneficial Conduct
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Promotions of Socially Beneficial Causes
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Cause-Related Marketing
Firms contribute a portion of the
revenues they receive from selling
certain products to causes that are
socially desirable and supported by
the American public.
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Cause-Related Marketing Example
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Consumer Ethical Awareness
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Consumer Ethics
• Consumer returns
• Software piracy
Discussion Question:
Do you think creative consumer practices that
avoid baggage fees and charge airlines falsely
are ethical? Why or why not?
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