Social marketing can be defined as the systematic application of marketing efforts combined with several other concepts and methods to fulfil certain behavioural objectives for a social cause. It can include various social messages such as avoiding smoking, using seat belts while driving, respecting speed limits and so on. Performing “social good” is the main objective of ‘social marketing’ in comparison to ‘commercial marketing’ where the main focus remains on financial aspects. However, it does not imply that commercial marketers do not contribute to society’s welfare.
The main differentiating point of social marketing is that its primary objective is to focus on ‘social good’. However, it does not mean that all the non-profit organisations or the public sector units are social marketers. In order to promote significant services and organisational objectives, various other standard marketing practices can be used by public sector units. This will have significant importance but there will be no connection with social marketing in which the main objective is to accomplish certain behavioural objectives in targeted groups with respect to the various subjects which are of greater importance to the social benefits such as recycling, healthcare, education and so on.
According to Andreasen
Social marketing is the adaptation of commercial marketing technologies to programmes designed to influence the voluntary behaviour of target audiences to improve their welfare and that of the society of which they are a part
Marketing Impact on Society
A lot of criticism is received by marketing, however, only some are justified. The critics of marketing point out the harmful impacts of marketing on consumers, society and other businesses. These can be explained as follows:
Marketing’s Impact on Individual Consumers
high Prices: Critics point out three main areas:
High Distribution Costs: Intermediaries are accused of high mark-up prices. The prices set by the intermediaries are very high as compared to the value of goods and services. Due to a large number of intermediaries or the presence of inefficient intermediaries or intermediaries offering duplicate or unnecessary services, the distribution cost of the product becomes high.
High Advertising and Promotion Costs: To balance the high advertising and promotion costs, marketers sometimes price their products very high to recover some of their costs. For example, using a particular amount of money, one can buy only one or two pairs of highly promoted jeans, whereas, more than two pairs of non-promoted jeans can be purchased using the same money.
Excessive Markups: Companies also tend to mark the prices high. A classic case is the drug industry where a drug is being charged at a very high rate compared to the cost of its production.
Deceptive Practices: Marketers often resort to deceptive marketing practices which give the consumers an impression that they are getting greater value than they actually. These deceptive practices are of three types:
Deceptive Pricing: Companies often resort to advertising a false price to lure customers. Here, price is advertised as factory price or wholesale price which gives the customers an impression that very low prices are being levied.
Deceptive Promotion: This includes overstating the benefits and features of the product or prompting the consumers to visit the store for low-priced products that are actually not available
Deceptive Packaging: Sometimes, marketers use deceptive packaging so as to lure consumers to buy the products. They inappropriately highlight the size and weight of the product, use misleading information in the labelling or use attractive packaging so as to present a normal product in hyperbole form.
High-Pressure Selling: The sales team has a reputation for indulging in high-pressure sales and forcing people to buy products that they had no need in the first place. This can be seen in sectors like real estate, timeshare and insurance. These people have been given specialised training in delivering smooth, well-prepared sales pitches which often succeed in convincing the customers that they are getting a great deal. They are also governed by heavy incentives and gifts if they achieve their sales target.
Shoddy, Harmful, or Unsafe Products: Another major concern is that it leads to the manufacture of products that are poor in quality and functionality. Sometimes, the production process is not so accurate or the services of the product are defective. These products are also poor in terms of the benefits they confer on consumers and may actually be harmful. For example, there has been a lot of negative publicity surrounding McDonalds because it causes obesity in kids. In fact many Indian states like Kerala have imposed a sin tax on the consumption of junk food because of the detrimental effects
Poor Service to Disadvantaged Consumers: The critics say that poor and underprivileged consumers often have to buy from stores that are small and charge a very high price. This would be overcome if larger retail stores like Big Bazaar would open outlets in economically backward regions. This would help to keep the prices of the products low. However, it is generally seen that the larger stores try to avoid the disadvantaged consumers of underprivileged areas.
Marketing’s Impact on Society as a Whole
False Wants and Too Much Materialism: Marketing generates false wants among consumers to make them materialistic. It develops a perception among the consumers that people are known for their assets like homes, furniture, cars, etc. As per the critics, this materialism is not a true desire of the consumers but is a false want created by the marketers among the consumers
Less Number of Social Products: Marketing is also said to bolster the consumption of private goods while ignoring the same for public goods. As a result, though the ownership of private goods increases the creation of public goods does not take place and this hurts the economy. The overselling of private goods leads to the garnering of social costs in the economy. For example, rapid consumerism in India has seen an explosion in the ownership of cards. However, this has not been augmented with the necessary infrastructure like better roads, parking places and traffic monitoring services. This leads to social costs like accidents, traffic jams, pollution and other harmful impacts.
Business Actions Towards Socially Responsible Marketing
There is cut-throat competition among the business firms for launching their products in the market. A huge amount of money is being spent on the publicity and advertisement of these products. Along with this, these firms also have the social responsibility of considering the general welfare of the common public and society. Many firms are taking many initiatives to promote various development activities, but this is not enough. Recently, in order to promote safe driving among the public, MRF launched a massive publicity campaign. Similarly, in order to promote the use of condoms and reduce the population, the publicity campaign was started by Benetton advertisement. It must be noted that there is no direct link between Benetton’s advertisement with this cause, but this concept was deliberately adopted by the firm to promote population control among the public. The various social marketing initiatives taken by many firms are described below
Enlightened Marketing: When the marketing strategy of a firm promotes and supports the best long run performance of the marketing system, it is regarded as enlightened marketing. There are mainly five basic principles of enlightened marketing.
Consumer-Oriented Marketing: Consumer-oriented marketing means that the marketing activities of a company should be viewed and organised from the perspective of customers. Delivering superior values to the customers and creating a long-lasting and mutually beneficial relationship with the customer is the main aim of this type of marketing.
Societal Marketing: The main focus of any enlightened firm remains on the interest and the requirements of the firm while making marketing decisions along with giving due consideration company’s requirements, and society’s long-run interests. The basic fact is that avoiding the consumer and societal long-term interest will result in huge losses to both the customer and the society. These societal issues are taken as opportunities by the alert firms.
