1.7 Towards social and ethical responsibility
Marketing suffers from a poor image of deceptive advertising, high-pressure sales, unsafe products, planned obsolescence and shoddy service among other complaints. Many believe that marketing must be subject to legislative control, but some marketers argue that this is an infringement of their rights in a free-market economy.
Activity 1.7
Take a few moments to write down some criticisms you would make about marketing.
Now write down the criticisms you have heard other people make about marketing.
Are the criticisms of others the same as yours?
We all know about advertising. We are bombarded by apparently 1500 or so advertisements every day ¾ on television, in the newspapers, in magazines and in our letterboxes. We also know about direct selling, where we have unsolicited telephone calls from people trying to sell us something, or people call at the door of our home to try to sell us a range of products.
We also know that these promotional activities sometimes result in our buying something we don't really want or need. Anyone with a few sets of steak knives they don't need out there? Or, we are buying something we hadn't intended to buy when we go to the supermarket to do our grocery shopping. Even when we resist we find that we indulge in impulse buying to some degree.
Remember that promotion is one of the Ps of the marketing mix; this tells us that marketing helps shape our buying behaviour. The influence of marketing is so widespread in society, it is not surprising that there is also criticism of it.