'Are Marketers Responsible for the Use of Harmful Products in Society? Essay\r'

'Mattel Toys is shortly in the process of withdrawing millions of toys released in the market place pastime disclosures that the toys feel substanti bothy higher(prenominal) elements of consent in in their paint. Excess lead can be counterproductive if ingested by children and can utilise mental retardation, a fact that senior managers at Mattel would maintain been s considerably up aw atomic tour 18 of. With the blame patch on and Mattel managers assuming the role of comfortably intenti bingled victims of callous suppliers, ravagers can do miniscule but wait for the next full-grown scandal.\r\nThe Mattel incident is just an other(a) unsportsman equal episode in the history of marketers existence responsible for the use of harmful products in family. Whilst many people consider honest market to be an oxymoron, there besides exists a body of thinkers who feel that marketers fasten to companionable and economic festering, argon more(prenominal) lots than not ethical and sell products that fulfil guest needs and are of use to society. The issue, temporary hookup discussed at great length by job experts, social researchers and merchandise academics stay topical and an issue that is far from resolution.\r\nThe innovation of incarnate social right (CSR) enjoins contrast firms to consider social and community vexs by taking debt instrument for the effect of their actions on nodes, component partholders, the community, and the environment in all areas of field of study. This concept extends beyond the scope of existing jurisprudence and encompasses voluntary actions to ensure well creation and improvement of quality of life of all stakeholders and the community at large. Milton Friedman, as is well known, had something very various to say.\r\nIn his words, â€Å"In a part with economy, there is one and only one social responsibility of business … to use its resources … to increase its profits … as long as it corset within the rules of the game”’ (Lantos, 2001, p 603) Friedman goes on to emphasise â€Å" fewer trends could so good undermine the very foundation of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as untold money for their stockholders as possible.\r\nThis is a fundamentally subversive doctrine” (Anderson, 1989, p. 3) Friedman is not totally in such thoughts and there come on to be a number of experts who share such views. Donaldson, for ex axerophtholle states that corporate executives who do not seek profits in a higher place all else are irresponsible in performing their hold outs. (Mascarenhas, 1995, p 46)Even while CSR is comme il faut a common enough spread out on corporate websites, many corporations, as is evidenced by the Mattel pillowcase notwithstanding firmly believe in Friedman’s wisdom..\r\n Whilst the protection and furtherance of customer interest is obviou sly among the fore nigh objectives of the CSR scheme of business corporations, corporate history is studded with scandals involving caller-up wrongdoing in areas of sell, finance, tax evasion, environmental degradation, and community activity. CSR tenets demand firms to sell products that are, in the first instance, safe and non injurious to consumers, the speedy community, the society at large and the environment, disregardless of profitability considerations or perceived customer value.\r\nno(prenominal)withstanding the current obsession with CSR (evidenced among other things by the growing Fair mickle movement), history makes a strong case for its consistent and widespread denial by marketers and is replete with instances of companies not only introducing harmful goods in the market but similarly making strenuous efforts to ensure its widespread use and proliferation.\r\nMarketing has, during the past few decades become the most critical function of the modern day corpor ation. Even as the constant habituate of trade strategy has led to the enormous expansion of businesses, a number of ethical issues demand manifested themselves in western hemisphereern nations, first as oecumenic concerns, and later as clear enunciations by various experts. Most of these issues relate to the incoming and propagation of products that harm and disempower consumers and communities. Marketing activity, gibe to these experts, can be damaging to the personalised choice and autonomy of the buyer, manipulative of social value, and deceptive in its message.\r\nIn an article on â€Å"Is there more to honorable Marketing than Marketing Ethics” Michel Brennan (1991, p 10) argues that the ultimate goal in a commercial venture is some straighten out of profit achievement. The needs and wants of consumers as well as the wider concerns for their impact on society become relevant only to the accomplishment of their effect on the profitability of the organisation. With marketers following this approach many inequities get crept into the practice of merchandising.\r\nIt is particularly seen to be biased against minorities same gays and ethnic groups, guilty of unethical practices against the elderly, who are targeted with products related to time shares, and living trusts, exploitive of children, who are influenced at impressionable stages to consume insanitary nourishment and drinks, and buy unwanted fashion ware, derogatory towards women, who are employ to elicit judgements on sexuality alternatively than product attributes, and cynically manipulative of the developing world, which is made the dumping ground for unnecessary, and often harmful, goods.\r\nGeorge Ritzer, in his celebrated book â€Å"The McDonaldization of high society”, (1993, p 37) illustrates in graphic concomitant the all pervasive and malevolent impact that mass market can aim on humankind. Ritzer argues that McDonaldization refers to a process wherein t he principles of the fast- diet industry, that is to say efficiency, predictability, calculability, and control through technology are apply to numerous sectors of society on a global basis.\r\nThis process, while being immensely profitable to businesses, has the potential to cause great harm to society. In McDonald’s, customers get in fast food outlets are manipulated to fall in for their food items before tasting them, hoard up their orders from common distribution points, choose from a restricted and unimaginative range of unwellnessy and high calorie foods, sit on uncomfortable chairs, (thus being urged to gobble their food and vacate their places fast enough), and put their trays into the food waste on their way out.\r\nSimilar practices, with the service of mass advertising and focussed promotions, have enveloped and controlled society in numerous ways. A recent study on candy store retailing and selling by revealed that merchandising decisions were driven more by issues homogeneous plaza maximisation, profitability and customer nip rather than by social responsibility. (Piacentinin, MacFadyen and Eadie 2000, p 463)\r\nThe role of advertising in marketing has also come under loathsome attack by critics who feel that several(prenominal) harmful values like rank consumption, greed, envy, emulation and self-centredness, to name a few, get reinforced by advertising. Whilst reactions like these do carry elements of self righteous extremism, the stemma that advertising can be more restrained and less blatantly warring in promoting consumption, particularly for products that go forth to be harmful to vulnerable segments of society, is also valid.\r\nDevelopments in technology, consumer answer and behaviour, and marketing thought have led to the introduction of a number of variables that have altered both the practice of marketing and its perception in the eyeball of practitioners, theoreticians and students. Progress in communication and profits technology has created a proliferation of information and provided consumers with an take off of choices. Not all of these developments have been positive. figurer and electronic communication technology have made it possible for large organisations to set aside and store personal and some quantify very private data, on large scales, thus leading to intrusions into the personal space and security of individuals.\r\nRecent trends in the west have reflected the emergence of a different line of thinking, namely post modernity, in most areas of human thought and endeavour. Whilst modern marketing thought, exemplified by the McDonaldized society, follows extols the superiority of mechanised works, as well as extreme standardisation, and whole shebang on the achievement of progressive abasement of humans post modernism bewilders with its relative majority of currents and styles, characterised by the juxtaposition of opposing thoughts.\r\nIn marketing situations, the em ergence of post modernism is reflected by the fragmentation of society, the rise of individuals, greater awareness in marketers of their ethical responsibilities and the development of movements like that of Fair Trade. The concept of QOL (Quality of Life) marketing is also rapidly gaining ground. QOL concepts broadly necessitate marketers to enhance customer well being and satisfaction without harming either the community or the various stakeholders. (Sirgy, and Dong-Jin, 1996, p22) QOL, by its very scope, is applicable to many marketing decisions and in particular to the selling of harmful products.\r\nWhile post modernist thinkers like Stephen Brown have been vehement in their criticism of modern marketing thought, especially on the irrelevance of mass marketing in an increasingly fragmented and more informed society, the larger corporate response favours staying with accepted marketing dictum and, of late, tweaking the marketing mix to include ethical concerns.\r\n then whils t there is an appreciation of the changed environment, its demands are still to be addressed sufficiently in the absence of concretised strategies that can be applied to maintain and wrest competitive proceeds. intensifier research will no disbelieve provide strategies that can cope with the changed realities in the marketplace and enable marketing to work towards social good.\r\nIn summation it would appear that while the movement to bring in ethics into the marketing of products is gaining headway practically work still needs to be done and marketers need to internalise the tenets of corporate social responsibility in their working attitudes. CSR objectives would be very well served if marketers, flush as they strive for competitive advantage and business profits also take care to observe time held values like honesty and exactitude, gratitude, justice, and protection of the health and safety of others.\r\nReferences\r\nBrennan, M, 1991, Is there more to ethical marketing th an marketing ethics, Marketing Bulletin, Vol. 2, Pgs 8 to 17\r\nMascarenhas, OAJ. 1995, ‘Exonerating unethical marketing executive behaviours: A diagnostic framework’, diary of Marketing, Vol.59, No.2, 43-57.\r\nLantos, GP. 2001, ‘The boundaries of strategic corporate responsibility’, journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol.18, No.7, 595-630\r\nNantel, J, 1996, Marketing ethics, Is there more to it than the functional approach?, European ledger of Marketing, Vol.30, No. 5, Pgs 9 to 19\r\nPiacentinin, M, MacFadyen, L., & Eadie, D. 2000, ‘ collective social responsibility in food retailing’, International Journal of sell & Distribution Management, Vol. 28, No.11, 459-469.\r\nRitzer, G, 1993, The McDonaldization of Society, Pine machinate Press; Revised edition (September 1995)\r\nSirgy, MJ. & Dong-Jin, L. 1996, ‘Setting socially responsible marketing objectives: A quality-of-life approach’, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 30, No. 5, 20-34.\r\n'