This outstanding book is a collection of essays on marketing and its effects on the common good, written by a top tier set of authors, most of whom are affiliated with the University of Notre Dame. Editors Patrick Murphy and John Sherry, given their strong leading work in this area of marketing, were ideal editors to put such a book together. Most of the book’s 19 essays originated at a 2011 Notre Dame conference on Marketing and the Common Good. While two of the essays in the book are focused on Catholic social thought, the book generally is focused on general (non-religious) issues under the broad concern of marketing and the common good. It is a book which should be read by anyone interested in the issues surrounding marketing’s effects on society and, thus, should be read by all who are interested or involved in marketing.
The book is arranged into seven sections: an introduction, societal aspects of marketing and consumption, Catholic Social Thought and marketing, marketing’s role in sustainability, public policy issues, ethics and marketing, and a conclusion.
Murphy begins the book with a great introductory essay on the origins and contemporary status of the common good, arguing that marketing has an increasing influence on the commercialization of society. The second article in this section is an adapted piece originally published in the Journal of Marketing by William Wilkie and Elizabeth Moore on “Marketing’s Contributions to Society,” which provides an overview of marketing’s history and the “aggregate marketing system.” This piece highlights the contributions and benefits that marketing provides to society, as well as raising some of the typical criticisms of the effects of marketing on society.
Co-editor, marketing professor and anthropologist John Sherry begins section two on societal aspects of marketing with a very enjoyable and provocative essay, “Slouching Toward Utopia: When Marketing is Society.” His prophetic writing style, while reminding the reader of the Old Testament prophets, points out the ways in which marketing has permeated and even become society for most consumers. He claims that, “marketing is the imagination and pursuit of utopia” and concludes with an optimistic declaration that the millennial marketers will help us “re-enchant the natural world and avoid ecological collapse.” This optimism about the possible positive effects on society directs many essays in this book, and comes out clearly again in Sherry’s concluding essay.
Continuing in the theme of marketing and society, Joel Urbany writes in, “The Case for Clarity” on the ways marketing sometimes confuses consumers—unintentionally and intentionally—and, alternatively, can help bring about clarity that empowers consumers. He provides a series of examples from companies’ best practices regarding information disclosure, billing clarity and simplifying assortments that actually help consumers make well-informed choices. He concludes that the connection between doing what is right for the common good and doing what is profitable is now beginning to be seen by a growing number of companies.
John Gaski and Michael Etzel’s essay, “How Marketing Serves the Common Good: A Long Term Consumer Perspective,” takes the responsibility of firms to be the fair treatment of customers, combined with good products and service, reasonable prices, and honest dealing. They show how their Index of Consumer Sentiments towards Marketing (ICSM) method scores consumer attitudes towards marketing efforts.
Y. Hugh Furuhashi and E. Jerome McCarthy’s article, “Social Issues of Marketing in the American Economy,” is a republication of a classic piece first printed as introduction to a 1971 book they wrote on marketing. It has a remarkably contemporary feel, since most of the public concerns they cite about business and marketing ring true today as they did nearly 45 years ago. Their “16 major gripes” with business in general are as appropriate today as they were when the piece was originally published.
The third section of the book concerns Catholic Social Thought (CST) and marketing. Patrick Murphy, Thomas Klein and Gene Laczniak are exactly the experts to speak to this issue with their essay on the recent papal encyclical Caritas En Veritate. Their essay gives the very basic principles of CST and highlights nine excerpts from the papal letter specifically about marketing and consumerism. They then highlight contemporary business practices in line with the document, including corporate responsibility reports, stakeholder dialogue, emphasis on sustainable products and services, concern for the poor, the recently renewed attention to ethics after the mortgage meltdown, and worker rights in the developing world.
Timothy Gilbride’s brief article, “A Commentary on Catholic Social Teaching and “Wanting the Right Things,” raises interesting questions about the compatibility of CST and marketing. A view of marketing that sees CST as attempting to fulfill the desires of consumers, may balk at attempting to determine what they should or shouldn’t want. In short, if consumers don’t care about CST values, then why would marketing take on those values? Gilbride concludes, however, that CST should be seriously considered and mined for ethical insights, even by those not of faith.
Section four on sustainability begins with Ron Nahser’s extraordinarily thoughtful article, “Consumption and the Un-Commons: The Economic Case for Reclaiming the Commons as Unique Markets,” advocates for the idea of treating the “commons as markets,” but in a way which reclaims marketing as a discipline to serve the common good. With a trajectory of thought running from Adam Smith to Kotler rather than Keynes, since Kotler emphasizes the human dimension of economics which Nahser sees as essential to understanding the subsidiarity at the core of marketing (and commons as markets). He provides the contrast of DePaul University’s campus with the University of Chicago campus as a stark difference in concern for the surrounding neighborhoods—DePaul being a model of successful revitalization and Chicago an example of bad thinking.
Jenny Mish and Alexandria Miller follow with an essay that examines the relationship between marketing and sustainability in light of “The Natural Step” framework, Wilkie and Moore’s aggregate marketing system, and the “4 P’s” of the “marketing mix” and claim that marketing plays an essential role in helping raise sustainability concerns and satisfying consumers’ interests in a sustainable economy.
Joseph Guiltinan’s essay, “Creative Destruction and Destructive Creations: Environmental Ethics and Planned Obsolescence,” begins, as one might suspect, invoking Vance Packar’s criticisms of planned obsolescence. He highlights some reasons we continue to have obsolescence and rapid-replacement consumer practices, including competitive pressures. Since consumer behavior seems to not be strongly influenced by concern for durability, Guiltinan focuses on the ethical obligations companies have to innovate towards durable products, to market and strategize towards durability, and public policy initiatives. He concludes with a set of questions managers should consider about product durability and its place in their marketing, strategy, and development decision-making.
In section five on public policy, Elizabeth Moore begins with an essay on the persuasion of children, particularly the effects of “advergaming.” Moore provides some historical background to the marketing-to-children discussion and related regulations since the 1970s, and highlights more recent issues including childhood obesity and food marketing, the rise of integrated marketing communication (IMC) campaigns, which use not only print and television, but phone and internet advertising, connecting products with games to play, and which often blurs the lines between advertising and entertainment. Referencing a Notre Dame study on “advergaming,” Moore points to special concerns, including the fact that children who participate in viral marketing of Froot Loops breakfast cereal or related products do not realize they are advertising for a corporation and, unlike TV, there are no restrictions or limits on how much exposure children may have to ads on the internet. Ultimately, Moore calls on marketers to consider their impact on society and the common good: “With its vast creative talent, resources, and skill, marketing can be a powerful force for promoting healthy diets and lifestyles in children. As we think about marketing and the common good, this should be our long-term societal goal” (206).
Kevin Bradford follows with an essay “Firearms and the Common Good” in which he argues against gun diversion, highlighting the various ways legal guns may end up being diverted to illegal purposes, and the resulting negative consequences for the public.
Patrick Murphy and William Wilkie provide a brief history of the longstanding relationship between Notre Dame and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Five Notre Dame faculty members have served at the FTC in various positions, and were involved in projects ranging from cigarette warning statements and corrective advertising requirements to lifting the ban on direct comparative advertisements (i.e., Pepsi vs. Coke) and researching the impacts of advertising on children. Such a practical long-standing relationship between academia and a federal regulatory industry is an ideal exemplar and has, it seems, led to a beneficial relationship for both institutions.
Section six of the book highlights a select few ethical issues in marketing. Tonya Bradford offers an essay on organ donation. While a niche area of marketing, the article provides an explanation of both organ donation markets and market exchanges for organs as well as the larger social and public policy concerns that such arrangements raise.
John Weber provides an essay on the ethics and sales, providing a fine list of ethical issues with regard to selling, a case study and a subsequent discussion of the stakeholder impacts of sales in general. Weber concludes with some argument for the importance and benefits of knowing one’s values and establishing a company code of ethics.
Georges Enderle and Qibin Niu wrap up the ethics section with an excellent essay on ethical issues marketing in China, provideing a great montage of examples of business cases from China, which highlight both ethical and unethical behaviors. They are arranged according to four topics: honest communication, enhancing human capabilities, fostering creative intercultural diversity, and sustainable growth and eco-efficiency. Examples of mislabeling, working conditions leading to suicide at Foxconn, Fuda’s culture of management, and ConocoPhillip’s oil spill in China’s Bohai Bay are examined. It is a broad, if quick sweep of some key marketing ethics problems in the Chinese context.
The concluding section is a probing piece by John Sherry on what might be done going forward to determine “what marketing can do to help harness the market to work in consort with other social institutions to realize the common good” (311). Highlighting Kotler’s Quality of Life (QOL) social marketing orientation, Corning’s Fair Society Model and recent work by Robert and Edward Skidelsky as a backdrop, Sherry offers human dignity, support for the poor and vulnerable, and solidarity as three key goals of marketing education that could help propel a reformation. He maintains that such “a reformulated marketing might have a stunning impact on the social order” (313).
This book challenges all of us, in whatever field of business we teach, to consider how our teaching frames the purposes and possibilities of business for our students. Rather than excising ethics by claiming to teach value neutral practices with a singular simple, financially measurable goal of economic utility, we should develop opportunities to help students see the humanity of the business enterprise, including the societal impacts of our practices and the ethical considerations which should guide us as human beings.
