Societal Marketing: Dangerous Territory or Universal Moral Obligation?

19 April, 2008 · Leave a Comment

Marketer’s need to get socially responsible fast

Are we responsible for the sum results of our actions? Gaski (1985) argued that social welfare is the business of elected officals, that once marketers start trying to decide what is socially responsible; what is in the interests of the public; something for which they are not trained, it is dangerous for society. He argued that this is the business of democratically elected officials.

And so it is, but we are human beings and have moral responsibility. Even if you have no belief in helping society, strangers who you will never meet, even if you can get past reponsibility to your family and friends, if the results of actions performed by a marketer take away from society as a whole, they are limiting their own chance at survival. If you believe that people are basically selfish, only looking out for themselves, in a global world can we would be hurting our own selfish selves by taking away from society as a whole.

I believe in moral responsibility, and I believe a lot of other people do. I am talking about marketers because its what I know, and because I feel marketers are uniquely posistioned to change people’s actions. These changes can be morally guided or not, as Philip Kotler (1997) said

The marketing concept sidesteps the potential conflicts between consumer wants, consumer interests and long-run social welfare

We as human beings cannot

Gaski, J.F., 1985. Dangerous territory: The societal marketing concept revisited. Business Horizons, 28(4), p.42-47.

Kotler, P. & Levy, S.J., 2001. BROADENING THE CONCEPT OF MARKETING. Marketing: Critical Perspectives on Business and Management.

Categories: Contemporary Issues in Marketing · karma
Tagged: Kotler, marketing ethics, morality, societal marketing

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