Principles of Marketing

Nineteenth Edition, Global Edition

Chapter 20
Sustainable Marketing: Social
Responsibility and Ethics

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Learning Objectives
20.1 Define sustainable marketing and discuss its
importance.
20.2 Identify the major social criticisms of marketing and
some counterarguments.
20.3 Understand how consumer, societal, and corporate
forces drive sustainable marketing strategy.
20.4 Understand how to build a sustainable marketing
organization.

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Patagonia’s “Conscious
Consumption”: Telling Consumers to
Buy Less
Patagonia’s Worn Wear
ReCrafted initiative creates
“upcycled” products made
from stockpiled fabric and
beyond-repair clothing that
would otherwise end up in a
landfill. “The scars tell a
story.”

Courtesy of Patagonia

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Learning Objective 1
Define sustainable marketing and discuss its importance.

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Sustainable Marketing (1 of 2)
Sustainable marketing is socially and environmentally
responsible marketing that meets the present needs of consumers
and businesses while also preserving or enhancing the ability of
future generations to meet their needs.

Sustainability: McDonald’s has

responded to sustainability
challenges by diversifying into
salads, fruits, grilled chicken,
low-fat milk, and other healthy
fare, including Happy Meals
offering more balanced food
components with simpler
ingredients. Michael Neelon(misc)/Alamy Stock Photo

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Sustainable Marketing (2 of 2)
Figure 20.1 Sustainable Marketing

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Learning Objective 2
Identify the major social criticisms of marketing and some
counterarguments

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Social Criticisms of Marketing (1 of 12)
Marketing’s Impact on Individual Consumers
• High prices
• Deceptive practices
• High-pressure selling
• Shoddy, harmful, or unsafe
products
• Planned obsolescence
• Poor service to disadvantaged
consumers
A heavily promoted national brand
sells for much more than a virtually
Sheila Fitzgerald/Shutterstock
identical non-branded or store-
branded product. Critics charge that
promotion adds only psychological
value to the product rather than
functional value.
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Social Criticisms of Marketing (2 of 12)
Marketing’s Impact on Individual Consumers
High Prices:
• Complaint:
– Prices are too high due to high costs of:
▪ distribution
▪ advertising and promotion
▪ excessive mark-ups
• Response:
– Intermediaries are important and offer value.
– Advertising informs buyers of availability and merits of
a brand.
– Consumers don’t understand the cost of doing
business.
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Social Criticisms of Marketing (3 of 12)
Marketing’s Impact on Individual Consumers

Deceptive practices:
Complaint: Companies use deceptive
practices that lead customers to believe
they will get more value than they
actually do. These practices fall into
three categories.
• Deceptive pricing
• Deceptive promotion
• Deceptive packaging
Jill Morgan/Alamy Stock Photo
Deceptive pricing: Large retailers from
JCPenney and Kohl’s to Neiman
Marcus, Nordstrom, and Old Navy have
been hit with lawsuits alleging that they
used inflated original prices.

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Social Criticisms of Marketing (4 of 12)
Marketing’s Impact on Individual Consumers
Deceptive practices:
Response: Support legislation to protect consumers from
deceptive practices. Make lines clear—is it deception,
alluring imagery, or puffery (exaggeration for effect)?
• Products that are harmful
• Products that provide little benefit
• Products that are not made well

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Social Criticisms of Marketing (5 of 12)
Marketing’s Impact on Individual Consumers
High-pressure selling:
• Complaint:
– Salespeople use high-pressure selling that persuades
people to buy goods they had no intention of buying.
• Response:
– Most selling involves building long-term relationships
with valued customers. High-pressure or deceptive
selling can damage these relationships

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Social Criticisms of Marketing (6 of 12)
Marketing’s Impact on Individual Consumers

Shoddy, harmful, and unsafe

products
• Complaint:
– Products have poor quality,
provide little benefit, and can be
harmful.
• Response:
– Good marketers realize there is
no value in marketing shoddy
harmful, or unsafe products.
Harmful products: Is the soft drink
industry being irresponsible by
promoting harmful products, or is it
simply serving the wants of consumers
while letting them make their own
Center for Science in the Public Interest
consumption choices?

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Social Criticisms of Marketing (7 of 12)
Planned Obsolescence
• Complaint:
– Producers cause their products to become obsolete.
• Response:
– Planned obsolescence is really the result of a competitive market.
Planned obsolescence: When it
comes to consumer electronics,
anything over a year or two old
seems hopelessly out-of-date. Is it
planned obsolescence, or are
companies simply meeting
consumer demands for the latest
technology?

Maxx-Studio/Shutterstock

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Social Criticisms of Marketing (8 of 12)
Marketing’s Impact on Individual Consumers
Poor service to disadvantaged consumers

• Complaint:
– American marketers serve
disadvantaged customers
poorly.
• Response:
– Some marketers profitably target
these customers and the FTC
has taken action against
marketers that do.
Food & Nutrition Service; Ronstik/123 RF
Serving underserved consumers: The
USDA recently launched a pilot
program that lets low-income SNAP
consumers order online, giving them
vastly broader food options at
competitive prices.
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Social Criticisms of Marketing (9 of 12)
Marketing’s Impact on Individual Consumers
False wants and too much materialism
• Complaint:
– The marketing system urges
too much interest in material
possessions
• Response:
– People do have strong
defenses against advertising
and other marketing tools.
MediaNews Group/Bay Area News via Getty Images
Materialism: Some marketers are
urging “conscious consumption.” R
EI closes its stores on Black Friday
and encourages customers to
#OptOutside.

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Social Criticisms of Marketing (10 of 12)
Marketing’s Impact on Individual Consumers
Increased Pressure on Public Goods
• Complaint:
– Businesses oversell private goods at the expense of
public goods.
• Response:
– There needs to be a balance between private and
public goods.

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Social Criticisms of Marketing (11 of 12)
Marketing’s Impact on Individual Consumers
Cultural Pollution
• Complaint:
– Marketing and advertising
create cultural pollution.
• Response:
– Marketing and advertising
are planned to reach only a
target audience and
consumers have alternatives.
Courtesy of Daniel Oines

Cultural pollution: People’s senses

are sometimes assaulted by a
clutter of marketing and advertising
that fills our screens and other
spaces.

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Social Criticisms of Marketing (12 of 12)
Marketing’s Impact on Other Businesses
• Acquisition of competitors
• Barriers to entry
• Unfair competitive marketing
practices

Competitive marketing practices:

The European Commission
recently fined Google heavily for
illegally using its search Alexandros Michailidis/Shutterstock

dominance to manipulate the

results of its Google Shopping
search comparison services to
favor its own shopping services
at the expense of rivals.
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Discussion Question (1 of 2)
Explain the major social criticisms of marketing and some
counterarguments.

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Learning Objective 3
Understand how consumer, societal, and corporate forces
drive sustainable marketing strategy

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Pathways to Sustainable Marketing
(1 of 8)
Consumer Actions to Promote Sustainable Marketing
Consumerism is the organized movement of citizens and
government agencies to improve the rights and power of
buyers in relation to sellers.
Consumer desire for more
information led to package
labels with loads of useful
facts, from ingredients and
nutrition facts to recycling and
country of origin information.

Ekaterina_Minaeva/Shutterstock

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Pathways to Sustainable Marketing
(2 of 8)
The Rise of Consumerism
Traditional buyers’ rights include:
• The right to not buy a product that is offered for sale
• The right to expect the product to be safe
• The right to expect the product to perform as claimed
Comparing these rights, many believe that the balance of
power lies on the seller’s side.

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Pathways to Sustainable Marketing
(3 of 8)
The Rise of Consumerism
Advocates call for:
• The right to be well informed about important aspects of
the product
• The right to be protected against questionable products
and marketing practices
• The right to influence products and marketing practices in
ways that will improve the “quality of life”
• The right to consume now in a way that will preserve the
world for future generations of consumers

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Pathways to Sustainable Marketing
(4 of 8)
The Rise of Environmentalism
Environmentalism is an organized movement of concerned
citizens, businesses, and government agencies to protect
and improve people’s living environment.
Environmental sustainability involves earning profits while
helping to save the planet.
Microsoft’s bold
environmental vision is to be
carbon negative by 2030 and
to remove all the carbon the
company has ever emitted by
2050. “This is a bold bet—a
moonshot—for Microsoft.” ZUM A Press, Inc./Alamy Stock Photo
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Pathways to Sustainable Marketing
(5 of 8)
The Rise of Environmentalism
Carbon footprint is a term that captures the total negative
CO2e impact associated with a product or service.
Consumers themselves
create carbon footprints
through their consumption
choices and product usage.
thredUP’s fashion footprint
calculator helps you answer
the question “How dirty is your
Courtesy of thredUP
closet?”

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Pathways to Sustainable Marketing
(6 of 8)
Corporate Environmental Sustainability Initiatives
Figure 20.2 Environmental Sustainability and Sustainable
Value

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Pathways to Sustainable Marketing
(7 of 8)
Corporate Environmental Sustainability Initiatives
Environmental
sustainability includes: Pollution prevention involves not just
cleaning up waste but also eliminating or minimizing waste before it is
created.
Product stewardship involves minimizing the pollution from production
and all environmental Impact throughout the full product life cycle.
Environmental sustainability: adidas
sets ambitious goals for sustainable
products and operations. Its Parley
shoes and apparel are created with
yarn made from recycled plastic
waste intercepted from the world’s
beaches and coastal communities
before it reaches the ocean.
Courtesy of Chris Johnson Photography

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Pathways to Sustainable Marketing
(8 of 8)
Specific Approaches to Reducing Environmental Harm
• Reimagine Material Choices.
• Source Materials from Sustainable Suppliers.
• Simplify Product Design and Other Processes.
• Shift to Sustainable Energy Sources
• Rethink Packaging.
• Construct Closed-Loop Value Chains
Sustainable sourcing: Brands that
source from Rainforest Alliance–certified
suppliers earn the right to use the
coveted Rainforest Alliance certification
seal on their products. In turn, the
Rainforest Alliance promotes its
certification to consumers, for instance
with its “Follow the Frog” campaign. Rainforest Alliance
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Learning Objective 4
Understand how to build a sustainable marketing
organization.

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Building a Sustainable Marketing
Organization (1 of 10)
Sustainable Marketing Principles
• Market with ethics
• Be consumer-centric
• Build long-term customer value
• Embrace a sense of mission
• Do no harm

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Building a Sustainable Marketing
Organization (2 of 10)
Market with Ethics
Ethical marketing: Applying high standards of ethics and morality when
making marketing decisions.
Table 20.1 Some Morally Difficult Situations in Marketing
1. Your R&D department has changed one of your company’s products
slightly. It is not really “new and improved,” but you know that putting
this statement on the package and in advertising will increase sales.
What would you do?
2. You have been asked to add a stripped-down model to your line that
could be advertised to pull customers into the store. The product
won’t be very good, but salespeople will be able to switch buyers
who come into the store up to higher-priced units. You are asked to
give the green light for the stripped-down version. What would you
do?

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Building a Sustainable Marketing
Organization (3 of 10)
Table 20.1 Some Morally Difficult Situations in Marketing (continued)
3. You are thinking of hiring a product manager who has just left a
competitor’s company. She would be more than happy to tell you all
the competitor’s plans for the coming year. What would you do?
4. One of your top dealers in an important territory recently has had
family troubles, and his sales have slipped. It looks like it will take
him a while to straighten out his family problems. Meanwhile, you are
losing many sales. Legally, on performance grounds, you can
terminate the dealer’s franchise and replace him. What would you
do?
5. You have a chance to win a big account in another country that will
mean a lot to you and your company. The purchasing agent hints
that a “gift” would influence the decision. Such gifts are common in
that country, and some of your competitors will probably make one.
What would you do?
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Building a Sustainable Marketing
Organization (4 of 10)
Table 20.1 Some Morally Difficult Situations in Marketing (continued)

6. You have heard that a competitor has a new product feature that will
make a big difference in sales. The competitor will demonstrate the
feature in a private dealer meeting at the annual trade show. You
can easily send a snooper to this meeting to learn about the new
feature. What would you do?
7. You have to choose between three advertising and social media
campaigns outlined by your agency. The first (a) is a soft-sell,
honest, straight-information campaign. The second (b) uses emotion-
loaded appeals that exaggerate the product’s benefits. The third (c)
involves a noisy, somewhat irritating commercial and pop-ups that
are sure to gain audience attention. Pretests show that the
campaigns are effective in the following order: c, b, and a. What
would you do?

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Building a Sustainable Marketing
Organization (5 of 10)
Table 20.1 Some Morally Difficult Situations in Marketing (continued)

8. Your company has positioned itself as a responsible steward of the

environment. Over the past two years, it has highlighted its
successful efforts to greatly reduce the carbon footprint from its
products and processes. The company has now come up with an
exciting new product that has excellent features and will likely be a
best seller. However, the new product’s carbon footprint over its life
cycle is five times that of the product it replaces. You have just been
promoted as the manager responsible for marketing and selling the
new product. What would you do?

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Building a Sustainable Marketing
Organization (6 of 10)
Marketing with Ethics
Marketing ethics and social
responsibility: CVS is on a
mission to help people lead
healthier lives. It not only quit
selling cigarettes but also
launched campaigns to urge
people, especially youth, to
quit smoking. “This is the right © Copyright 1999–2022 CVS Health

thing to do.”

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Building a Sustainable Marketing
Organization (7 of 10)
Market with Ethics
American Marketing Association
(AMA): code of ethics
• Do no harm
• Embrace ethical values
• Foster trust in the marketing
system
IgorGolovniov/Shutterstock
Marketing ethics: Under Armour’s
Code of Conduct urges all
employees to “Protect this house—
Make the right call.” regarding
issues of ethics and social
responsibility. “It’s as simple as it
sounds.”

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Building a Sustainable Marketing
Organization (8 of 10)
Be Consumer-Centric, Always
Consumer-centric marketing: A company should view and
organize its marketing activities from the customer’s point of
view to sense, serve, and satisfy customer needs, now and
in the future.
Build Long-Term Customer Value
Consumer value–building marketing: A company should
put most of its resources into long-term consumer value–
building marketing investments.

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Building a Sustainable Marketing
Organization (9 of 10)
Sense-of-Mission Marketing
Define mission in broad social
terms rather than narrow
product terms.
Sense-of-mission marketing:
Pedigree makes good dog
food, but that’s not what the Ssokolov/Shutterstock

brand is really all about.

Instead, at its core, the brand
is about loving and caring for
dogs.

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Building a Sustainable Marketing
Organization (10 of 10)
Do no harm—Inspire Socially Responsible Outcomes
Figure 20.3 Societal Classification of Products

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Building a Sustainable Company
The Sustainable Marketing Organization
The Sustainable Company: A company that creates value
for customers through socially, environmentally, and
ethically responsible actions.
Marketing that’s driven by
sense of mission requires
more than just having a
worthwhile purpose. It
requires an underlying
business model that makes
delivering the purpose
possible. Aravind Eye Care System

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Discussion Question (2 of 2)
What is marketing with a sense of mission?

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