Consumers and Social Well-Being

4-1Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR, 11eMichael R. Solomon

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• Underlying assumption: Ethical business is good business.

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Marketing Ethics and Public Policy

• Business ethics are rules of conduct that guide actions in the marketplace

• There are cultural differences in what is considered ethical.

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Do Marketers Manipulate Consumers?

• Advertisers simply do not know enough about people to manipulate them

(some argue)

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Do Marketers Create Artificial Needs?

• Need: a basic biological motive

• Want: one way that society has taught us that the need can be satisfied

Objective of marketing: create awareness that needs exist, not to create needs

versus

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Do Marketers Promise Miracles?

• Do consumers “discount” ad claims?

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Materialism

• Materialism: the importance people attach to worldly possessions• “The good life”...“He who dies with the most

toys, wins”• Materialists: value possessions for their

own status and appearance; buy just to have• Non-materialists: value possessions that

connect them to other people or provide them with pleasure in using them

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Advertising & Materialism

Does advertising foster materialism?• Products are designed to meet existing needs• Advertising only helps to communicate their

availability • Other sources of materialism• Is materialism necessarily bad?

Old versus New Materialism

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Adbusters and “Culture Jamming”

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Transformative Consumer Research

• TCR promotes research projects that help people or bring about social change

• Social marketing strategies use marketing techniques to encourage positive behaviors such as increased literacy and to discourage negative activities such as drunk driving

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Data Privacy and Identity Theft

• Identity theft occurs when someone steals your personal information and uses it without your permission.

• Advances in technology to combat Identity Theft

• Are consumers deterred by loss of privacy and identity theft fears?

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Market Access

• Disabilities

• Impoverished populations• Access to reasonably priced goods and

Redlining• Food deserts• Equal protection under the law

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Sustainability and Environmental Stewardship

• Triple bottom-line orientation• Financial (profit)• Social (people)• Environmental (planet)

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Conscientious Consumerism

• Conscientious consumerism is a focus on personal health merging with a growing interest in global health

• LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability)• Middle/Upper-Middle/Upper Class consumers• Concerned about the environment• Want products to be produced in a

“sustainable” way• The “Worried Well”

LOHAS

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Carbon Footprint Breakdown