Question

Give marketing examples and thoughts on: data privacy, identity theft, sustainability & environmental stewardship, addictive consumption, and marketing ethics as it pertains to children, the elderly, and other disadvantaged groups.

Answer 1

Marketing examples and thoughts on:

1. Data privacy

Companies must not use personal information in their possession for the purposes of direct marketing unless:

• The company collected the personal information directly from the individual, and
• the individual would reasonably expect the company to use their personal information for marketing, and
• the company provides a simple mechanism through which individuals can unsubscribe or opt out of receiving marketing, and
• the individual has not opted out or unsubscribed.

Example - Honda Motor Europe sent an email to 289,790 subscribers between May and August 2016 asking their database if they “would you like to hear from Honda?”.

This email was sent in order to clarify how many of the 289,000 subscribers would like to receive marketing emails going forward. But, once again, this email was sent to individuals who had specifically opted out. This mistake earned Honda a £13,000 fine as a result.

2. Identity theft

• As people share increasing volumes of personal information online and on mobile devices, they make it easier for thieves to access private accounts.
• Companies now also focus their marketing efforts on educating the public and raising awareness about the dangers of identity theft.

Example - LifeLock provides customers with a series of monitoring services to help prevent identity theft, such as checking for new bank or wireless-phone accounts being opened and combing "black market" websites and networks that trade in stolen identities. It also provides remediation services, helping customers recover from identity theft by hiring experts, lawyers and consultants.

3. Sustainability & environmental stewardship

• Sustainable marketing calls for socially and environmentally responsible actions that meet the present needs of consumers and businesses while also preserving or enhancing the ability of future generations to meet their needs.
• It focuses on meeting the company’s short-term sales, growth, and profit needs by giving customers what they want now. However, satisfying consumers’ immediate needs and desires doesn’t always serve the future best interests of either customers or the business.
• 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.

Example - McDonald’s early decisions to market tasty but fat- and salt-laden fast foods created immediate satisfaction for customers and sales and profits for the company. However, critics assert that McDonald’s and other fast-food chains contributed to a longer-term national obesity epidemic, damaging consumer health and burdening the health care system.

4. Addictive consumption

• Addiction is as a result of indulging in an obsessive and compulsive act or substance use, in order to derive pleasure.
• It can be said that marketing has done more harm than good when it comes to the misrepresentation which it has shown of addictive substances, and this act is currently on the rise

Example - Mass of people visit Starbucks for their daily (if not more frequent) fix of caffeine. Starbucks’ key business drivers, if not their most critical business driver – it sells products that cater to people’s addictive tendencies. What Starbucks has done better than many other addictive marketers is that they also make it cool and trendy to succumb to your addiction.

5. Marketing ethics as it pertains to children, the elderly, and other disadvantaged groups

• Companies need to develop corporate marketing ethics policies—broad guidelines that everyone in the organization must follow.
• The critics are quick to fault what they see as greedy food marketers who are cashing in on vulnerable consumers, turning us into a society of overeaters.

Example - Recalls in Canada included a pain reliever that was recalled for a labeling error, children’s jewelry that was recalled because of concerns about lead and cadmium, contact lenses that were recalled because of a silicone oil residue, and drugs that were recalled because they created a risk of heart attack

• Major chain retailers ‘redline’, i.e. draw a line around disadvantaged neighborhoods and avoiding placing stores there.

Example - A recent study conducted in Montreal that focused on consumers’ access to fresh fruits and vegetables found that there was good access to such foods for those who shop by car, but that 40 percent of the population who need stores within walking distance had poor access to these types of foods.