Marketing Plan

10 Responsible Marketing Three arrows in a circle representing sustainable development. Petmal/Thinkstock Learning Outcomes After reading this chapter, you should be able to Discuss corporate social responsibility as a response to major criticisms of marketing. Describe practitioners’ duty to the marketing discipline. Discuss the impact of a green marketing strategy on the marketing mix. Summarize the ethical obligations of individuals inherent in the employer–employee relationship. List three marketing principles that apply to managing your personal brand for on-the-job success. Describe three professional career paths in marketing. Introduction The moment you begin working in marketing, you assume responsibility for practicing high ethical standards with regard to your responsibility to the public, the marketing profession, the company that employs you, and the industry in which it functions. In addition, you must take responsibility for yourself—your individual performance on the job, your contribution to workplace teams, and your preparation for advancement. In this chapter you’ll learn to apply what you’ve learned about marketing to managing your personal brand while on the job. This chapter approaches responsible marketing beginning with a wide-angle view of the effect of marketing practices on the public and the planet. Then the lens narrows with each section in turn to focus on concerns of the profession, organizational employers, and individual contributors. The marketing field offers careers in many roles, suitable to a wide variety of personalities from analytical to creative. Where will you find your niche? This chapter ends with an exploration of the newest skills needed and the emerging locales where marketing practitioners will thrive. With an understanding of your role in responsible industry practices, this chapter concludes our study of the basic principles of marketing. 10.1 Responsibility to the Public Over the past 50 years, the Super Bowl has become a shared American cultural experience, but not just because of love for football. Millions of people tune in to watch the advertisements. Since the rise of social media, Super Bowl advertising has become the centerpiece of integrated marketing campaigns that extend over many months (Sanburn, 2016). On social media, we’re drawn to the many ads that require our clicks to reveal a reward of some kind, whether it’s the punch line to a joke or our score on a game or quiz. We’ve grown accustomed to the blurring of the lines between entertainment and promotions, and not just on television. As marketing communications move into new message channels, new forms of promotions have proliferated that bear little resemblance to paid advertising. The many forms of “advertainment” in today’s social media (branded videos, quizzes, and so on) place the burden on the public to decide whether products are being pitched—and in which instances that is appropriate behavior for marketers. When you step from being part of the public to a role in the marketing profession, you become ethically bound to serve the public’s well-being. That will, at times, make you the target of criticism. Criticisms of the Marketing Function The marketing field is frequently criticized for its negative impact on individual consumers, other businesses, and society at large. Marketers naturally present offerings in the best light possible, and sometimes this crosses the line into false representation. Marketing messages can raise unrealistic expectations of what a product or service will do for consumers—consider the prescription drug commercials in which the images show happy, healthy people, but the voiceover lists many possible negative side effects. Advertising imagery can create unhealthy cultural ideals, like the unattainably thin women in fashion illustrations. Because children are highly susceptible to advertising, it can influence them in negative ways, from food preferences (Fruity Pebbles, anyone?) to risky behavior—just ask Joe Camel (Jenson, 2017). Over the years there have been enough instances of unethical behavior by businesses to warrant not just criticism but specific legislation designed to constrain damaging marketing practices. Critics of marketing have charged that some companies use unfair practices to harm other businesses; some of these practices are listed in Table 10.1. Legislation designed to limit unfair practices exists, but it cannot keep up with emerging methods. In December 2011 online retailer Amazon encouraged customers to report local retailers’ prices using a specially designed smartphone app and rewarded those who did so with discounts on purchases of those items. The move, while legal, was met with a barrage of criticism from the press and other businesses (Mandelbaum, 2011). Table 10.1: Some marketing practices’ effects on other businesses Practice Effect Acquiring competitors Reduces development of new products but produces economies of scale that lead to lower costs and prices Using patents to protect processes Blocks competitors from adopting similar processes Spending heavily on promotions Drives up costs of entry for start-ups, which must match or exceed that spending Demanding exclusivity in channel partner contracts Constrains suppliers or dealers from pursuing their own interests Pricing below costs Discourages buyers from purchasing from competitors Limiting the circumstances in which promotional discounts are available Constrains buyers from behaving in their own best interests Note. Marketers may be tempted to use unethical practices to achieve competitive advantage. Each of the above may qualify as illegal depending on the extent and circumstances of the practice. See Chapter 8 for more on the legal factors affecting marketing practices. Marketing’s impact on society has also been widely criticized. The emphasis on promotion of goods and services in the developed world has been accused of fostering materialism and creating visual pollution, while contributing little to social well-being. Critics point out that the market system gives industries too much power over the public interest without commensurate responsibility for the public’s health and safety. Field Trip 10.1: Adbusters and Adblock Plus Follow these links to learn more about organizations and offerings that oppose negative practices of some businesses. Adbusters is a global network of social activists aiming to use message channels creatively to disrupt the way corporations wield power. http://adbusters.org Adblock Plus software frees users’ Internet experience of loud and intrusive ads but leaves those that are simple, static, and informative. http://adblockplus.org/en The emergence of organizations like Adbusters and offerings like Adblock Plus give evidence of the public’s desire to oppose the negative practices of some businesses. In Defense of Marketing Marketing has indeed earned some of the criticism leveled at it—but where would we be without it? Without marketing communications, how would prospective buyers learn about the goods and services that might fill their needs and desires? What financial model would replace paid marketing communications to support the many businesses and organizations that are currently underwritten by advertisers? Marketing has value. For individuals, it assumes economic importance, allowing companies to thrive in a competitive market and thus provide employment. Promotional activity leads to higher sales that in turn make more offerings more affordable to more people. Advertising subsidizes much of the information and entertainment available in contemporary society (Kurtz, 2010). Without advertising to cover the costs of news gathering, we would have much less access to responsible journalism. Without sponsorships and product placement, we would see fewer movies and television programs. For businesses, marketing activity leads to new customers, increased brand loyalty, and greater stability and growth. Without these important benefits, businesses would not be able to provide the economic advantages they do. Other organizations, including nonprofit groups and governmental agencies, frequently deploy the techniques of marketing communication to achieve aims that benefit the public. As discussed in Chapter 3, selling the idea of behavioral change is so effective and widely practiced that it has its own term: social marketing. Table 10.2 summarizes these arguments. Table 10.2: The value of marketing Stakeholder Beneficial effect Individuals Provides employment Makes more offerings more affordable Subsidizes information and entertainment Businesses Leads to new customers Increases brand loyalty Creates stability/growth Public Promotes positive behavioral change Underwrites information and entertainment Note. Marketing has value for individuals, businesses, and the public. Unacceptable Marketing Practices Marketing has power. Some uses of that power fall outside acceptable boundaries, such as manipulation of vulnerable consumers (including the very old and very young, the mentally ill, and others at risk), invasion of privacy, and theft of personal information. For example, the blurring of the distinction between advertising and entertainment has been an increasing concern where advertising to children is concerned. Food companies have come under fire for their use of entertaining online games and smartphone apps to build relationships with young children (Richtel, 2011). The position of the advertising industry is that marketers are obligated to gain the trust of children and their parents through honest messages, while parents must accept responsibility for monitoring their children’s media habits and developing their consumer literacy. A strategic alliance of major advertising trade associations formed the Children’s Advertising Review Unit in 1974 to promote responsibility in children’s advertising. The group’s guidelines, which address the level of children’s knowledge, sophistication, and maturity, apply to all advertising in print, radio, and broadcast and cable television and on the Internet directed to children under age 12 (Advertising Education Foundation, 2012). Misuse of personal data is another issue that has been an object of public concern. Data breaches are the most obvious danger; even the most dependable and established companies on the Internet, such as Amazon and eBay, have not proved capable of keeping personal data safe (Perlroth, 2012). Financial transactions conducted over the Internet and profiles on social media sites were once the main vulnerabilities for personal data. But as devices have proliferated that collect information from individuals, new vulnerabilities—and questions—have arisen. How will that trove of personal information be used? Most consumers are aware that Google analyzes search terms to discover trends—information it sells for profit. In 2009 Google researchers worked with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to create a predictive model called Google Flu Trends that can predict regional flu activity with a lag of only about a day. The model is based on flu-related web searches tied to searchers’ Internet addresses that indicate their physical location. That Flu Trends report, originally intended to serve public health, became the cornerstone of an advertising campaign for Vicks in late 2011, when the company introduced the Behind Ear Thermometer. Vicks’s advertising agency developed a mobile campaign to reach mothers (the primary purchasers of thermometers) using mobile apps like Pandora that collect demographic data about users. By marrying Google’s Flu Trends reports to the demographic data on mobile app users, Vicks targeted its campaign for the Behind Ear Thermometer. Vicks sent its ads only to smartphones belonging to mothers living within 2 miles of retailers carrying the Vicks thermometers. Each ad noted the location of the nearest store selling the product. Is Vicks being helpful or creepy by taking its data-driven mobile campaign to such a degree of target marketing? Advertising commentators felt that because the information is useful and relevant, and the fine-tuned behavioral targeting is not overly obvious to recipients, the campaign does not cross the line into misuse of data (Newman, 2011f). You may feel differently. With the rise of artificial intelligence–enabled devices like the Amazon Echo and Google Home, consumers have invited “always on” listening devices into their lives. These Internet-connected devices promise to increase convenience but can easily be exploited by hackers for surveillance or data theft. Sometimes the manufacturers themselves are the ones behaving badly: In 2017 Vizio was fined $2.2 million for selling “smart” televisions that tracked users’ viewing habits without their knowledge and sharing that information without customers’ permission (McGoogan, 2017). Acceptable marketing practices will always be a moving target reflecting changing technology and societal norms. By its nature, the marketing discipline will always be pushing into new territory in its search to break through existing advertising clutter and command target consumers’ attention. As new marketing methods appear, the process of judging what practices are unethical will continue. Field Trip 10.2: Industry Self-Regulation Regarding Online Privacy Have you ever seen a turquoise triangular icon in the upper right corner of online ad? This triangle offers a means to understand when information about your interests (as signified by your online activity) is being collected or used, and by which companies. Clicking that icon leads to online tools to control how data is collected and used to target ads based on your interests. The AdChoice icon represents participation in the self-regulatory program for online behavioral advertising developed by the industry trade group Digital Advertising Alliance. Originally developed for Internet browser technology, in 2015 the mobile environment was also included in this program. Follow this link to learn more about the AdChoice program. http://www.youradchoices.com Ethical Marketing Companies that serve consumers who share a Marketing 3.0 outlook will be expected to practice a philosophy of ethical marketing that requires them to be socially responsible and culturally sensitive. Ethical marketing serves the sustainability of the entire market system—not merely corporate self-interest. A company following ethical marketing practices will organize itself around its customers’ point of view and perceptions of value; seek continuous improvement and innovation; and reflect a triple bottom line of profitability, environmental health, and social progress. Financial profit cannot take priority over social or environmental impacts. Ethical marketing benefits consumers, companies, and society as a whole (Mish & Scammon, 2010). Some companies go so far as to organize around a mission of achieving philanthropic goals—placing social progress or environmental health before profits, while maintaining a commitment to all three measures of the triple bottom line. This structure, which may be for-profit or nonprofit, is known as the social enterprise model. This model is particularly necessary in emerging markets where social needs are greatest. “Eradicating poverty is arguably humankind’s biggest challenge” (Kotler, 2010, p. xiii), write the authors of Marketing 3.0. Promotion of entrepreneurship, more than governmental or nonprofit aid groups, will be the force that lifts the world’s poor toward greater security. Why? Because corporations already operate in a market structure that leads to economic development. By bringing this structure to the developing world, even if only to expand markets for their offerings, corporations can play a major role in achieving greater human rights and well-being for the world’s poor (Kotler, 2010). Ben & Jerry’s PartnerShop® program is a sweet example of a social enterprise that brings business and nonprofit organizations together: Each PartnerShop is a Ben & Jerry’s scoop shop that is owned and operated by a community-based nonprofit organization. The Ben & Jerry’s company waives its standard franchise fee and provides additional support to help its nonprofit partners’ scoop shops succeed. Ben & Jerry’s (2018) has targeted youth development organizations to open PartnerShops, recognizing that scoop shops offer excellent job opportunities for young people. In the United States two legal forms of business organization address the needs of firms that want to pursue a social enterprise model. One is the benefit corporation. This classification offers an alternative to the traditional for-profit corporation with its mandate to maximize profits for the benefit of shareholders. A benefit corporation puts the focus on commitment to pursuing a goal other than profit. In benefit corporations, members of the board of directors are required to consider nonfinancial stakeholders as well as the financial interests of shareholders. Examples of benefit corporations include the online craft bazaar Etsy, online glasses retailer Warby Parker, and outdoor gear company Patagonia. To be certified as a benefit corporation, or B corp, companies are scored on an assessment and take steps to meet certain legal requirements that vary by state. Companies must then get recertified every 2 years (McGregor, 2015). The other legal form is the low-profit limited liability company (L3C), a structure for for-profit companies with a social mission as their primary goal. This form is available to social entrepreneurs who seek the legal and tax flexibility of a traditional limited liability company (LLC), the social benefits of a nonprofit organization, and the branding/positioning advantages of a social enterprise (Lane, 2014). An example of an L3C company is the Mission Center in St. Louis. The Mission Center provides “back office” services such as accounting, human resources, and insurance functions to small nonprofit organizations that do not have the scale or willingness to undertake those functions on their own (Cohen, 2014). Whether or not companies organize as social enterprises, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the foundation on which they build ethical marketing practices. This form of self-regulation is built into a company’s business model and corporate values. It takes the form of written policies to ensure compliance with the spirit (not just the letter) of laws governing marketing practice and to the unwritten law of ethical standards. The goal of a company’s CSR policy is to embrace responsibility for its actions, to encourage positive impact (Wood, 1991). Can ethical marketing be sustainable, given the intense competition in most industries? Can organizations remain competitive while committed to social responsibility? Yes—if they can find a structure that supports caring without creating competitive disadvantage. Even if the moral and ethical legitimacy of social responsibility is evident, the fact remains that such initiatives cost money, and organizations face an economic imperative to remain profitable, which means remaining competitive. Competition solely on price leaves little room for caring. The company that can differentiate its offerings sufficiently can operate “in a class by itself” and thus afford commitment to social responsibility. The business case for ethics-driven practices can be compelling: Such policies create competitive advantage, attract investment, reduce cost and risk of legal fines or government intervention, attract and motivate better talent, and foster innovation (Chavez, 2011). Field Trip 10.3: Patagonia Marketing and CSR: A Case Study Outdoor apparel company Patagonia has been recognized as a leader in CSR. The company promotes fair labor practices and safe working conditions throughout its supply chain and commits 1% of total sales or 10% of profit (whichever is greater) to environmental groups. Follow the link below to read a case study on how Patagonia achieves competitive differentiation by marketing its CSR approach. Patagonia and the Marketability of Anti-materialism http://www.brittonmdg.com/the-britton-blog/case-study-patagonia-sustainable-marketing-corporate-social-responsibility Ethical Marketing in Action TOMS Shoes and Sustainability TOMS Shoes must generate positive revenue if it is to sustain its policy of giving shoes to poor children. Do you think that you personally will benefit from the kind of data mining described in this video? What are the two chief problems the "data hunter" in this video needs to solve to make predictive analytics useful to marketers? The marketing approach of British chocolate manufacturer Green & Black’s presents an example of ethical marketing delivering competitive advantage. The chocolate industry has come to resemble the wine industry, with proliferating varieties and price points and sources from corporate conglomerates to boutique producers. In this crowded marketplace, Green & Black’s chose to focus on raising consumers’ awareness of its organic offerings and Fair Trade certification. Green & Black’s marketers chose experiential and digital marketing tactics. From April to October 2011, the company created an experience at food and wine events in five U.S. cities with booths designed to foster engagement with attendees as brand ambassadors who introduced flavors, explained ingredients, and entertained with dessert-building demonstrations. It also hosted brief seminars about the company’s global sourcing and Fair Trade credentials. The farmers who supply cocoa to Green & Black’s receive a guaranteed minimum price, plus additional funds to invest in their countries’ environmental, social, and economic development (Birkner, 2011). The campaign created a brand relationship with consumers that lifted Green & Black’s above commodity status. Other examples of successful ethical marketing initiatives include the following: Every year, Toms Shoes hosts One Day Without Shoes, an event designed to raise awareness about global poverty and funds to combat it. (The company founder, Blake Mycoskie, had visited Argentina and noticed many barefoot children, leading to his idea for a shoe company that provided a free pair of new shoes to youth in developing countries for every pair sold.) Brand enthusiasts observe the day by going without shoes and posting photos to social media with the hashtag #WithoutShoes. Toms gives away a new pair for every hashtagged photo, up to a million. User-generated content is central to the initiative, which in 2016 resulted in over 27,000 new pairs of shoes delivered to children worldwide (Rogers, 2016). Planters, the snack nut brand owned by Kraft Foods, paid for and developed parks in low-income neighborhoods in New Orleans, Manhattan, and Washington, D.C. The offbeat parks feature peanut-inspired landscape designs, plantings of fruit and nut trees, and rain gardens. Experiential marketing events accompanied the ribbon cuttings, with the Nutmobile (a peanut-shaped vehicle powered by biodiesel) and Mr. Peanut himself, in signature top hat and monocle (Foderaro, 2011). Field Trip 10.4: Ethisphere Ethisphere is a magazine and website with a mission to help guide business leaders toward better business practices and corporate citizenship while maintaining a sustainable competitive advantage. Each year it recognizes the World’s Most Ethical Companies—those it judges to demonstrate real and sustained principled leadership within their industries. Visit the magazine’s home page and click on the Honorees button to view the most recent list of the world’s most ethical companies. http://worldsmostethicalcompanies.ethisphere.com As has been shown, many marketers and the corporate leaders they report to have taken seriously their responsibility to the public’s best interest. This comes in response to criticism of marketing for contributing to confusion between advertising and entertainment and engaging in practices with negative impacts on individual consumers, businesses, and society. In defense of marketing, we must recognize its contributions to a healthy marketplace. Promotional activity leads to growth and stability for companies; jobs, information, and entertainment for individuals; and marketing of ideas that lead to positive behavioral changes in society. Ethical marketing and the social enterprise business model have emerged to place value on the triple bottom line of profits, people, and planet over profits alone. Marketers are discovering how to use social responsibility to establish competitive differentiation that lifts them above competing solely on price. As the examples cited illustrate, many companies are now actively responding to the major forces identified with Marketing 3.0. They are carving out positions of authentic competitive differentiation, engaging consumers in meaningful ways, and serving human and environmental welfare through social initiatives. Questions to Consider During the Great Recession of 2007–2009, some state governments began to consider legalizing, licensing, and taxing Internet gambling to generate new revenue to help fill budget gaps. Legalizing online gaming would help states maintain needed services, but it might put more people at risk for gambling addiction. What is your view of the ethics of the situation? 10.2 Responsibility to Our Planet In Chapter 8 consumer concerns such as depletion of nonrenewable resources, pollution, destruction of habitats, and climate change were noted as factors in the marketing environment. Plus, it is in the nature of Marketing 3.0’s humanity-centric consumers to expect and even demand ecological sustainability from the companies we patronize. As collaborative partners cocreating the value we buy, we don’t want our “business partners” to be actively harming us or jeopardizing our children’s future. For these consumers, ecological sustainability is a competitive advantage. Green marketing has emerged in response—an approach characterized by practices that minimize the impacts of production processes, packaging, and marketing communications. Greening the Four Ps Green marketing impacts all four of the marketing mix’s four Ps: Product: Every manufacturing step offers an opportunity for a company to make green choices, from sustainably sourcing its raw materials to how its products are packaged. CSR can be seen as part of the product concept that adds value through meeting consumers’ desire to buy from companies that prioritize sustainability. Place: Green marketers must consider the impact of supply chain logistics that get raw materials, components, and finished products to consumers. The increased speed of transportation has made distribution easier anywhere in the world—if you are willing to ignore the carbon footprint of all that shipping. Distributed manufacturing offers a green solution, such as using 3-D printing that allows products to be manufactured close to final customers (Meyerson, 2015). Price: Products with the feature of “being green” are generally expected to be more expensive than conventional offerings—but worth it for the planet’s sake. However, consumer demand for green products proved relatively elastic in the economic downturn of 2008. These factors affect pricing decisions for green offerings (Clifford & Martin, 2011). Promotion: Consumers are becoming more skeptical of advertising claims of social responsibility (Huffman, 2015). Green offerings bring their ecological bona fides to the brand narrative—if in fact the product and the company that stands behind it are green. Ethically, green marketing is impossible unless the company is green in its behaviors. A company’s purchasing, production processes, packaging, and marketing communications must all be authentically oriented toward ecological sustainability. Let us consider each in turn. Green companies’ purchasing of raw materials and component parts should be ecologically neutral or even benefit producing, as when those purchases reward sustainable agricultural practices. Production processes can be “greened,” as when Nike switched to DyeCoo technology that eliminates the use of water in the dyeing process (Nike, 2016). Packaging for shipment has come under fire for creating a growing stream of waste as online shopping has grown. E-commerce grew by 25% in 2016, according to NBC News. As consumers receive products directly, apartment buildings and homes now generate more waste than retail and grocery stores (Sottile & Kent, 2017). Companies have responded with innovative solutions, like Dell Computer’s use of agricultural waste (such as wheat chaff) injected with mushroom spores. The final product looks and acts like Styrofoam but is organic, is biodegradable, and can be used as compost or mulch (Dell, 2016). The greening of marketing communications is most obvious in the shift to online channels and the more targeted use of direct mail, which reduces paper consumption. The environmental impact of printed communications can be reduced through use of sustainably harvested or recycled paper and printing with soy-based ink. Online channels would seem to be free of effects on the environment, but are they really? Media is the fifth largest industry in the United States, and with its growth comes attention to the carbon footprint of server farms, networks, computers, and mobile devices (Ottman & Mallen, 2014). Walmart store aisle that advertises “earth-friendly products.” Associated Press After losing about 8% of consumers because of negative perceptions, Walmart introduced environmentally friendly products, required suppliers to use more efficient packaging, and improved its fuel-efficiency processes and waste management. Before we leave the topic of green business practices, one emerging business model deserves a closer look: the sharing economy model used by companies like Airbnb, Uber, and Turo. By shifting from production of new assets to putting customers’ underutilized assets to work, these companies help the environment. The marketplace produces fewer goods while maintaining access to a broad variety of goods and services. Measuring carbon emissions, home sharing is 66% more effective than hotels. Car-sharing participants reduce their individual emissions by 40% (Scorpio, 2012). The sharing economy model exemplifies the Marketing 3.0 emphasis of cocreation of value. Issues and Concerns Overall, green marketing is in harmony with the values of Marketing 3.0’s humanity-centric consumers. However, companies that want to operate with ecological sustainability must confront several issues. There is a great deal of confusion among consumers about sustainability practices. If you have ever stood in front of a display of egg cartons at the grocery story, wondering about the relative merits of cage-free, free-range, free-roaming, or free-farmed eggs, you have likely experienced this confusion. Eggs can also vary by type of feed and use of antibiotics and hormones. In fact, eggs have more eco-labels than any other product, according to Consumers Union, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group (Atkinson, 2014). It is this profusion of labels that deepens consumer confusion. Understanding Greenwashing Greenwashing promotes a perception that a company is environmentally friendly, when that is not actually the case. How do companies use the visual elements of their brand image to project an environmentally friendly image? When a company responds to consumer pressure with more environmentally friendly policies and practices, can it be considered authentially green? Eggs are just one example of a significant issue facing marketers: the lack of a universally understood and respected standard to which the term “green” can be held. Multiple standards for certification and eco-labeling exist, some administered at the federal level and others by nongovernmental entities. In a study reported in the Journal of Advertising, researchers Lucy Atkinson and Sonny Rosenthal found that consumers prefer detailed labels that contain information about the eco-claims being made over simple icons or graphics that suggest eco-friendly qualities. Their study also tested whether the source of an eco-label—from a government agency or from a corporation—affected consumers’ evaluations. They found that while consumers appreciated corporate interest in green practices, they were more likely to trust government labels. Atkinson (2014) posited that the advertising industry could be part of an industry movement to establish consistency and transparency in labeling. Green marketing can create competitive differentiation for a brand. But if that marketing is not held to the standards set by the FTC, a company may be engaging in greenwashing, a term for deceptive marketing communications that promote a perception that a company’s policies or products are environmentally friendly when that is not actually the case. If consumers believe that a company is greenwashing, that perception can damage the brand’s reputation whether or not greenwashing is actually taking place. Thus, it is important to hold all marketing to a high ethical standard. In 2012 the FTC issued revised Green Guides to help marketers avoid making green marketing claims that are unfair or deceptive. The Green Guides include sections on the principles of ecological benefit claims, as well as guidance on specific claims, such as “nontoxic” and “recyclable,” plus use of carbon offsets, green certifications and seals, and renewable energy and renewable materials claims. Marketers should use caution when making green marketing claims, since misleading or overstated claims can lead to regulatory or civil challenges (Federal Trade Commission, 2018) and, of course, making such claims is unethical. Exaggerated claims and false claims are two kinds of ethical lapses related to greenwashing. Volkswagen portrayed itself as an environmental steward producing automobiles at the leading edge of the clean energy revolution, until it was discovered to have installed software designed to trick emissions tests on 11 million cars with supposedly clean diesel engines. Other carmakers have sinned by exaggeration as well: In 2014 Kia and Hyundai paid $300 million in fines after overstating the gas mileage for 1.2 million vehicles (Gelles, 2015). Examples of false claims are rarer, thankfully. And yet when a claim of responsibility to the planet is baldly better for the company than the consumer, it creates a perception of greenwashing that can damage a brand—and a whole industry. Hotels have begun encouraging guests to support the environment by shutting off lights and reusing towels, but these claims are increasingly recognized as self-serving, since they also reduce operating costs (McMurray, 2015). Underwriters Laboratory (UL) maintains a list of “deadly sins of greenwashing” which marketers would do well to follow. For the list, follow the link in Field Trip 10.5. Field Trip 10.5: The Sins of Greenwashing UL Environment works to advance global sustainability, environmental health, and safety by supporting the growth and development of environmentally preferable products, services, and organizations. Seven Sins of Greenwashing http://sinsofgreenwashing.com/findings/the-seven-sins Green Marketing Is Growing As has been shown, the implications of green marketing reach into every corner of a business, from modifying the four Ps to choosing marketing communication practices that do not take advantage of consumer confusion. Marketers must steer clear of greenwashing to establish authentically green value propositions and thus meet Marketing 3.0 consumers’ desire to do business with companies that respect the triple bottom line of financial, social, and environmental sustainability. Two vehicles parked outside Subaru of Indiana Automotive Inc. Associated Press All Subaru production plants commit to zero-landfill manufacturing, and its Indiana automobile production plant is the only such facility in the United States to be designated a wildlife habitat by the NWF, according to the company’s media center. An excellent example of authentically green marketing comes from Japanese automaker Subaru. In 2016 and again in 2017, the automaker teamed up with the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) to combat decline of natural habitats in a partnership branded Subaru Loves the Earth. Following guidelines from the NWF, Subaru created certified wildlife habitats on the grounds of over 400 schools and supported hands-on educational programs to connect young people with nature. Subaru donated gardening supplies and paired Subaru dealerships with schools in their areas to provide the water, nutrients, and care the wildlife habitats need to thrive. Participating schools were encouraged to share photos and stories in their social streams. The Subaru Loves the Earth initiative was humanity-centric, ecologically beneficial, and a good fit between the company’s value chain and its core customers’ values (Subaru U.S. Media Center, 2017). Every company should at least evaluate the possibility of integrating ecologically sound practices into its business strategy. Green marketing is not a cure-all for boosting sales, and it can be more difficult to sustain during times of economic hardship for consumers, but companies that do adopt this approach gain an important point of competitive differentiation. These companies should make their credibility apparent by displaying their proof of meeting recognized standards of green performance. Reporting standards, certifications, and eco-labels are useful green marketing tools (Aulakh, 2012). Questions to Consider Do you research a company’s green status before purchasing? Does that behavior change when you are purchasing in a local store versus purchasing online? Does it make a difference what kind of products you are thinking about? For example, do you strive for sustainability when it is something you purchase and consume frequently, like household products, but less when thinking about purchases that you make only rarely, like furniture or a car? 10.3 Responsibility to the Marketing Profession When you accept a position as a marketer, whether with a small start-up company or an established global brand, you commit to bring honor to the house. Your first step toward responsibility to the marketing field should be to join professional associations, industry trade groups, and local business organizations. These groups’ members will continue your education in best practices and emerging issues. The chief organization to which marketers in the United States belong is the American Marketing Association (AMA). This group’s roots stretch back to the early 1900s in marketing education as well as practice. Today the AMA serves as a conduit for knowledge sharing, provides resources and professional development opportunities, and promotes thought leadership to help marketers deepen their expertise and enhance their careers. (Information is available at http://www.marketingpower.com.) After joining organizations such as the AMA, make time to be a full participant. When you attend meetings, pay attention to presentations; the information you take in will be fresher than anything you find in books or periodicals. Ask for copies of handouts and slide decks if not provided. Ask questions of the presenter. Make use of networking time during association meetings to develop relationships with colleagues and potential mentors. Share what you’re working on with your peers, within the bounds of confidentiality. Volunteer for service roles, choosing project work or organizational leadership, depending on your time and talents. The time you invest will prepare you for success. Field Trip 10.6: Professional Organizations for Marketers Follow these links to websites of leading associations for marketing practitioners: 4 A’s (formerly the American Association of Advertising Agencies) http://www.aaaa.org American Advertising Federation http://www.aaf.org American Marketing Association http://www.marketingpower.com Association of National Advertisers http://www.ana.net Direct Marketing Association http://www.the-dma.org Know and Abide by Applicable Laws and Regulations In Chapter 8 you learned that laws and regulations crafted to protect companies, consumers, and society require businesses to operate in specific ways. It is incumbent on marketers to be familiar with the regulations affecting the general practice of marketing and those specific to certain industries. Intellectual property and copyright laws apply to everyone, including all marketing practitioners in all industries. Airlines, telecommunications, utilities, financial services, and health care are among the industries in which marketers must know and abide by additional applicable laws and regulations. For example, financial institutions are subject to certain requirements, restrictions, and guidelines designed to maintain the integrity of the financial system. Regulatory authorities include the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the National Credit Union Administration. In financial services, regulations will always have an impact on the marketing department, because changes trigger a need to communicate with clients of the institution. In health care, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) addressed many issues, including the need to ensure the security and privacy of health data. The HIPAA Privacy Rule defines how health care providers and insurers can use individually identifiable health information (termed Personal Health Information, or PHI). Data-driven marketing techniques must comply with HIPAA limits designed to minimize the chance for inappropriate disclosure of PHI (What Is HIPPA, 2012). With regulation comes compliance; financial service marketers must work closely with their compliance officers to ensure that all efforts are “up to code.” Health care marketers must be knowledgeable about the many fine points of HIPAA in order to design marketing strategies that abide by the applicable laws and regulations. Practice Within Ethical Boundaries Most marketing tactics are not constrained or prohibited by existing laws and regulations. But there is still a guideline with which marketers’ behavior must comply: the profession’s own ethical boundaries, touched on earlier in the discussion of ethical marketing. Customers will resist doing business with a company that behaves unethically. An important marketing practice designed to respect ethical boundaries is permission marketing, a concept popularized by Seth Godin in his 1999 book Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends, and Friends Into Customers. This direct marketing practice arose in response to concerns about unwanted e-mail (spam) and other marketing communications. Permission marketing requires obtaining permission from prospective customers before directing more marketing efforts toward them. Godin’s (1999) insight was that true one-to-one relationships are built on an explicit agreement between seller and buyer. In an age of data-driven marketing communications, tracking the opt-in or opt-out status for each relationship is not difficult—and absolutely required for marketing within ethical boundaries. One of the overriding themes in discussions of ethical business practices is the issue of transparency—the use of nondeceptive tactics and the ready disclosure of the motivation behind observable action. Specifically, do recipients of promotional messages know when a pitch is being made? The answer was easy in traditional marketing communications, where a logo or the words “brought to you by” conveyed all the information that was needed about who was selling what. Advertisers’ defense was that consumers were intelligent and could identify commercial messages and interpret them as such. In an era in which paid brand ambassadors and product placements blur the boundaries of commercial pitches, the “intelligent consumer” defense starts to break down. Permission marketing is one strategy by which transparency is reintroduced. But transparency is more than avoidance of deception. Transparent literally means “what is beyond or behind can be distinctly seen.” In this sense transparency goes hand in hand with authenticity. Companies are learning not to try to convince consumers they are anything other than what they truly are, in terms of their business model, marketing messages, and ethical behavior. A case in point: McDonald’s Canada developed its “Our food. Your questions” campaign to counter misinformation and customer concerns about ingredients in its food. The campaign gave customers an opportunity to ask anything—and McDonald’s a chance to educate consumers and stand by its word. The campaign launched in 2014 and by July 2016 had attracted over 42,000 questions and 3.8 million visitors to the campaign’s FAQ website (Milbrath, 2016). Domino’s delivery driver. Associated Press A “fail” by Domino’s tracking app in 2017 shows that a small error can erode trust. A “fail” by Domino’s shows that a small error can erode trust. Domino’s app lets customers track their pizza. But in 2017 one customer got a message that delivery driver “Melinda” would arrive with his pizza. Instead, a man showed up. “Ever since then, I knew everything they said . . . was made up,” Brent Gardiner told the Wall Street Journal. Domino’s responded that “Tracker has worked as intended for . . . millions of orders. . . . Sometimes people make mistakes.” Not even a white lie is acceptable to Marketing 3.0 consumers (Bindley, 2017). Marketing tactics will continue to evolve, with norms involving transparency, protecting privacy, and ethical organizational behavior evolving in response. Marketing leaders are calling for the industry to take a leadership role in establishing those norms (Drumwright & Murphy, 2009). A good place to begin, as you prepare to join practitioners in the field of marketing, is with the AMA’s Statement of Ethics; follow the link in Field Trip 10.7. Field Trip 10.7: American Marketing Association’s Statement of Ethics American Marketing Association’s Statement of Ethics http://www.marketingpower.com/AboutAMA/Pages/Statement%20of%20Ethics.aspx In conclusion, as marketers we each owe our profession our best work. We keep our knowledge and skills at their sharpest by actively participating in professional organizations. Marketers must also know and abide by applicable laws on the books, as well as the unwritten ethical code emerging from contemporary marketing practice that welcomes transparency, rewards relationship building, and condemns greenwashing and other forms of deceptive spin. Questions to Consider Who gets to decide what is ethical behavior? Should rank-and-file employees leave such decisions to the organization’s leaders? Can marketers live by one set of ethical values in their personal life but carry out assignments that ignore those values while at work? 10.4 Responsibility to Your Organization When you accept a marketing position, you become ethically bound to serve the public and the marketing profession. You also accept an ethical responsibility to your employer. The relationship is not simply economic; it is a mutual dependency with impact on both employer and employee. The employer has an obligation to consider employees’ welfare. The employee has a duty to give a full measure of effort in return for a paycheck. In addition, employees have an obligation to behave ethically in all transactions with stakeholders—coworkers, managers, shareholders, and customers. More companies today are making their philosophy and values transparent. The public experiences that transparency in mission statements, positioning slogans, and the like. Stakeholders are provided with company policies and guidelines designed to help managers deal ethically with questions and issues that arise. These guidelines typically cover the company’s CSR philosophy plus policies regarding customer service, supply chain relations, and issues relating to the marketing mix such as fair pricing, safe product development, and truth in advertising. Organizations bear the responsibility to ensure that such policies are credible, sustainable, meaningful, and prudent (i.e., will not jeopardize profitability or the interests of shareholders.) Prospective employees increasingly say they want to work in organizations that share their philosophies and values (Balmer, Reyser, & Powell, 2011). Transparency regarding philosophy and social responsibility policies helps employers and employees find the right fit. Responsibility to the Brand Branding as a marketing technique is intended to attract and retain customer relationships. Marketing 3.0 consumers are looking for ethical, customer-oriented brands. A brand’s narrative emerges from public perceptions of the brand’s persona. Whether that story is positive or negative reflects marketers’ performance in living up to the image they’ve created. Patagonia is one brand that has earned a reputation for social responsibility. Others include Stonyfield Farm (organic dairy products), Tom’s of Maine (personal care), the Body Shop (personal care), and Ben & Jerry’s (ice cream), among others (Balmer et al., 2011). No organization can maintain an ethical reputation for its brand when its rhetoric is divorced from reality. Attempts to do so have brought trouble to the likes of Toyota, BP, and Wells Fargo. Field Trip 10.8: Critical Lessons From Product Recalls Despite the best efforts, no organization can completely protect itself from the possibility of harm to customers. Therefore, brands must prepare to respond to unfortunate events. Follow this link to read advice from the brand management company that handled Blue Bell Creameries’ response to a listeria outbreak that tainted its products. Blue Bell: 4 Lessons From a Recall Crisis http://vianovo.com/news/blue-bell-4-lessons-from-a-recall-crisis Responsibility to Channel Partners An expectation of ethical behavior is part of the relationship among partners in organizations’ supply chains. A few negative events can undo the cumulative effect of many positive activities. Factors most often cited in research about channel partner relationships are conflict, opportunism, and unfairness (Samaha, Palmatier, & Dant, 2011). Managers should take a proactive approach—for example, developing training for channel partners in the importance of ethical behavior and enforcing contracts designed to mitigate the potential for conflict and opportunism. Consider the fictionalized example of a SkyView Foods marketing analyst named Eric. He was tasked with improving the software that aggregated individual store sales in the 28-store grocery chain. The aggregate sales data reports were used to claim promotional reimbursement from a manufacturer in a trade promotion. The amount of each reimbursement check was based on the quantity of product retailers sold to consumers, rather than the quantity purchased from the manufacturer. Eric’s department submitted sales reports to claim the reimbursement, which the manufacturer checked for accuracy, duplication, eligibility, pricing, and customer returns. Once the claims were reviewed, payment was made to SkyView Foods. The new software Eric implemented automated the sales reports that were previously produced by an accounting clerk. Eric’s boss came to him with a command to revise the new software so that “counts could be modified.” When Eric probed about what sort of modifications could be needed, he learned that the company had been fudging the counts of products purchased to increase reimbursements from manufacturers. Eric’s colleagues encouraged him to go along with the deception, citing better prices for customers as a result. Eric was still pondering his dilemma when the manufacturer discovered the discrepancy in past reports. Eric did a quick online search and learned that when similar deceptions were uncovered, other retailers had been required to pay fines. In one such account, he learned that five executives—including the one who blew the whistle on the deception—lost their jobs (Castleberry, 2011). Eric’s situation highlights the difficulty for an employee when channel partner relationships veer toward the unethical. In this case, opportunism spelled real potential risk for Eric’s employer—and possibly for its employees as well. Responsibility for Value Creation What’s your ROI? In other words, what return are you generating on the investment your company has made in you? You are responsible for creating value for your employer. If you are not focused on that goal, you are slighting one of the chief responsibilities incumbent on an employee. (This applies not just in the marketing field, but in any position.) Generating value is your obligation—and your job security, to some extent. What defines a value-creating employee? Some of the attributes are tactical, having to do with handling responsibilities efficiently and effectively. A value-creating employee completes assigned tasks without waste and with positive outcomes. Some of the attributes of a value-creating employee are strategic, having to do with seeing the big picture and envisioning where effort would add value. Do you bring a problem-solving mind-set to your role in your employer company? The best problem solvers are systems thinkers who view a “problem” as an interdependent part of an overall system. Rather than react to a specific part (problem), systems thinkers envision how the outcomes or events triggered by a proposed solution will potentially contribute to the whole. Because of their attention to the whole, systems thinkers are better at contributing solutions that improve operations without bringing unintended consequences. Systems thinkers create value. If your current role does not allow you to bring a problem-solving mind-set, what aspect of your work life could you use to demonstrate those capabilities and show your potential to generate added value beyond the role you were hired to fill? The bottom line is this: Employees who are not generating value are generating reasons for redefinition of their job descriptions. If you’re not creating value in your current role, you’d better have your resume up-to-date. Where would you like to be employed instead? Envision the type of company and position in which you will be able to generate a positive ROI for your next employer. This discussion of the ethical requirements of employees toward their employers has covered responsibility to the brand, to the company’s channel partners, and to value creation at the level of individual effort. At every level in an organization, it is important for individuals to walk the talk supporting relationships among channel partners and between the brand and its public. Questions to Consider If you were Eric working for SkyView Foods, would you have blown the whistle on your employer or colluded in the deception? If you were the creative director of an advertising agency that was assigned to promote a vehicle with known safety problems, would you accept or refuse the assignment? 10.5 Responsibility to Yourself The September 1997 issue of Fast Company magazine carried an article titled “The Brand Called You” authored by business management guru Tom Peters. The essay called for workers to recognize their role as “head marketer for the brand called YOU.” Appearing as the first dot-com boom was still on the rise, the article captured much about a time when the world of work was rapidly being reinvented. At one end of the spectrum, large companies were growing even larger through mergers and acquisitions. At the other end, dot-com start-ups were grabbing attention and unprecedented investor dollars. The Internet had delivered the potential for an economy based on a free-agent workforce. Peters tapped a nerve. The Free Agent Philosophy “Everyone has a chance to be a brand worthy of remark,” Peters (2007, para. 10) declared. Then he proceeded to apply the principles of positioning to the problem of career success. Peters observed that when anyone can have a consumer presence and a communication channel, the people who succeed will be those who have built a trusted brand name. Peters spelled out the need for positioning “Brand You” on points of competitive differentiation. He asked individuals to take the challenge marketers put brands through: Answer the question “What is it that my product or service does that makes it different?” in 15 words or less. What’s the customer value equation offered by “Brand You”? Delivering work reliably on time, giving excellent service to internal and external customers, and meeting allotted budgets are all features with benefits. But Peters pressed his readers to go a step further: to ask what you do that adds measurable, distinctive value. What have you accomplished that you can shamelessly brag about? What do you want to be known for? As a student of marketing, it should be clear to you that these questions aren’t rhetorical—they’re the tools of the trade marketers use to find a unique value proposition on which to position a brand. Peters identified a key shift in the 1990s world of work: the emergence of what he termed “Project World.” In Project World, careers are not a linear climb up a corporate ladder. Instead, careers are constructed from a stream of steadily more interesting, challenging, influential projects. Loyalty in Project World is not given blindly to a company—it belongs to colleagues, teams, projects, customers, and self. “A career is a portfolio of projects that teach you new skills, gain you new expertise, develop new capabilities, grow your colleague set, and consistently reinvent you as a brand,” Peters (2007, para. 20) wrote. He concluded his landmark article with a call to define success as doing what you love, as a result of job and project opportunities that allow one to be a great colleague, visionary, business strategist, and creator of value (Peters, 2007). Since Peters published “The Brand Called You,” the sheer proliferation of messages and message channels has made standing out as an individual more doable—and, paradoxically, more difficult. The takeaway from Peters’s lesson in applying branding to individual career development is simple: Focus on becoming the best at what you do. Did “Project World” emerge as Peters projected it would? Pretty much, although it earned a different name—the “Gig Economy.” A 2017 study found that 36% of the U.S. workforce were freelancers, with freelancing expected to surpass traditional employment by 2027. Millennials are leading the way in this trend, the study found: Forty-seven percent of millennial workers were freelancing, more than any previous generation (Edelman Intelligence, 2017). Field Trip 10.9: “Brand You” Original and 2 Decades Later Read the original 1997 Fast Company cover article “The Brand Called You.” http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/10/brandyou.html Has this concept stood the test of time? Follow these links to read an opposing view published in 2015 and a rebuttal published on Tom Peters’s blog. https://newrepublic.com/article/122910/my-paradoxical-quest-build-personal-brand http://tompeters.com/2015/11/brand-you-2015 Commit to Your Success Will you commit to developing Brand You as head marketer for your personal brand or follow a more traditional approach to your career design? Either way, certain basic responsibilities to yourself apply. You must commit to doing original work; to filling the gaps in your skills, knowledge, and abilities; and to avoiding inappropriate self-promotion. Do original work: As a student, you have no doubt been warned about the perils of plagiarism. All laws concerning the originality of ideas apply to you whether you are a student, employee, free agent, or entrepreneur. Intellectual property consists of the output of the minds of individuals that has commercial value, including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. Because it is property, it can be kept or sold. Others can be prevented from altering it or selling it for their profit. Copyright law exists to protect intellectual property and covers both published and unpublished work. The minimum requirements for copyright law to apply are that the work must be original, have exhibited some minimal level of creativity, and be in a fixed form of expression. Fine points of the law cover fair use and parody, two exceptions that allow a certain degree of leeway in the use of others’ intellectual property. The website http://www.copyright.gov provides a wealth of information on applicable U.S. law. In a culture that has grown increasingly accepting of the mashup—a term that comes from the hip-hop music practice of mixing two or more songs—it is easy to forget that a chain of responsibility to the original creators exists with each bit and byte appropriated for new creative work. As a marketer, you will likely face frequent temptation to build on or borrow from inspirations in popular culture around you. Commit to working within the bounds of the law—and showcasing your own original talent. Fill your skills gaps: When you step into a position in a marketing department, your education and previous work and life experience will have led to mastery of a set of skills. But will that include everything your new position requires? Likely not. Given the rapid pace of evolution in marketing, especially in digital channels, knowledge and skills become outdated quickly. Don’t be discouraged by what you don’t know; your ability to learn is more important to an employer than mastery of outdated skill sets. Because marketing plays a significant role in both the costs and the sales of a business, familiarity with basic accounting is recommended for marketers. You also need enough knowledge of math concepts such as ratios to understand what the gauges on a marketing dashboard indicate or to perform a breakeven analysis. Good written and verbal communication skills are also a must in business, even for people in technical and/or analytical roles. Ability to write clearly and concisely is important. If your education has not exposed you to sociology, psychology, or anthropology, you are likely to find yourself in a customer-oriented company without sufficient understanding of human behavior. If you have not studied engineering or biological sciences, you may be missing the systems thinking or scientific knowledge that would make you more valuable to your employer. Commit to lifelong learning, both through study and experimentation. Mark Brown, SEO/content strategist at Wunderman Memphis, a digital marketing agency, says: You can dive right into social media management and website building. It costs no money to create a Facebook page, and there are many options available to build free websites. Whether you’re sharing your favorite memes or writing articles about your favorite video games, you’ll get exposure to tracking traffic and engagement metrics, creating content, and basic website architecture. These skills, as well as your initiative and curiosity, will be received positively by hiring managers. (M. Brown, author interview, December 8, 2017) Avoid inappropriate self-promotion: Whether or not you wholeheartedly adopt the Brand You philosophy, develop your instinct for appropriate self-promotion. It has never been easier to build Brand You, but it has also never been easier to destroy your brand. Seek and accept assignments that allow you to build skills and showcase them. That might mean volunteering for an extra project or teaching a class, writing for the company newsletter or local paper, or offering to give presentations at workshops and conferences. The visibility will build Brand You—if you deliver substance and avoid shameless self-promotion. Also use social media to raise your visibility—but be sure you have something to say. Quality rules over quantity in the busy world of social networks. Other rules of appropriate self-promotion include the following. Keep your credentials visible—but never fake or exaggerate them. Develop an area of expertise and become your company’s “go-to” person on that topic—even if it’s just how to produce better PowerPoint presentations. Once you’ve built that area of expertise, share it freely. Give advice and offer opinions. (But acknowledge the expertise of others just as freely.) In social media, create conversation. Ask questions, post tips, and let building Brand You follow naturally. Divide your time responsibly. Make sure more of your time is spent on value creation for your team than for Brand You. Putting a little of your work time into being visible is good for all, but too much is not. Some say an 80/20 split is about right (Elmer, 2011). Bottom line: Bragging will get Brand You nowhere. Becoming the best at what you do will. While not everyone agrees today about the enduring applicability of Peters’s free agent philosophy, it has come to characterize the workplace experience of many. Peters’s Project World describes where many marketers work today. In Project World, individuals must take responsibility for the originality of the work they produce, the development of their skills and knowledge base to meet evolving demands, and the style with which they pursue self-promotion. Questions to Consider Who do you think is more viable in today’s business culture: a Brand You free agent or an “organization person” who is willing to put personal advancement second to the good of the company? Explain the reasoning behind your answer. 10.6 Marketing: A Vibrant Career Path Working in marketing means a job with lots of variety, collaboration with many different departments inside the company, and frequent contact with distribution channel partners, customers, and the public. Marketing positions can take you in several different directions. If you are by nature an analytic type, you could apply your skills in market research or data mining. If your talents lean more toward creativity, you could be the genius behind great advertising campaigns. Are you a “people person”? Put your skills to work in public relations, account services, or marketing management. Your mission, should you choose to accept it (to quote the culturally important 1960s television show Mission Impossible), is to find the career path in marketing that allows you to do your best work while contributing value to an organization you believe in. Where will that be? What Jobs Fit You? A good place to begin building your knowledge about marketing jobs is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ online Occupational Outlook Handbook. The link in Field Trip 10.10 will take you to the section describing jobs in marketing and related fields. You’ll find detailed information there about the nature of the work in different specialties, training and other qualifications required, potential for advancement, employment outlooks, wages, and more. Field Trip 10.10: Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook Follow this link to the Bureau of Labor Statistics online Occupational Outlook Handbook section on jobs for advertising, promotions, and marketing managers. http://www.bls.gov/ooh/management/advertising-promotions-and-marketing-managers.htm Click the “Similar Occupations” tab to explore related careers, such as art direction, graphic design, and public relations. Marketing is such an important business function across such a broad spectrum of organizations that it would be easier to answer “where isn’t there opportunity?” than to specify where opportunity exists. Marketers work in three areas: as entrepreneurs, marketing the organizations they lead in organizations with marketing departments in agencies that provide specialized services to organizations The nature of work life is somewhat different in each of these career paths. Entrepreneurship gives some people their first taste of marketing work. Some discover marketing in their DNA and go on to make that aspect of starting and running a business the focus of their careers. The case study in this chapter follows an entrepreneur who brought to life his concept—connecting people to cultural projects for financial support. Marketing departments within organizations, including for-profit companies, social enterprises, nonprofit groups, and government agencies, produce a significant portion of marketing jobs. Agencies that provide specialized services such as advertising, marketing communications, event management, social media management, and web content fill out the opportunities for employment in the marketing field. Within organizations there are typically multiple levels, including executives, managers, and specialists. In companies and agencies, account executives often serve as liaisons between members of teams serving specific accounts. All three types of workplaces (start-up, corporate, or agency) offer careers in marketing. Individuals could choose to specialize in one sector or move among them for a more varied career experience. As the business world adapts to the expectations of the emerging Marketing 3.0 era, working relationships, job roles and titles, and everything else is undergoing a process of reinvention. Do not expect yesterday’s functional structures to be relevant in tomorrow’s workplace. As you look for a job in the marketing field, you will need to seek the latest information about job roles and the skills and abilities they require. Your Career in a Marketing 3.0 World Consider the forces identified with Marketing 3.0: consumers’ demand for participation, increasing global opportunity and the resulting need for increased social responsibility, and an increasingly creative, connected society able to focus on higher meaning. What do these forces spell for careers in marketing? Traditional marketers relied on four skill areas: personal selling, advertising communications, sales promotion, and marketing research (Kotler, 2005). As data mining, CRM, experiential marketing, and online media have joined the mix, a whole new set of skills will be needed. Consider the following media reports about changing expectations. A gap is emerging between worker skills and the demands of new jobs that require substantial quantitative, mathematical, and technical skills. Today’s behavioral targeting techniques put the emphasis on generating many ideas and testing them for consumer appeal. Agencies are now hiring “number crunchers” to perform quantitative analysis and produce data visualizations that reveal the meaning behind the numbers. Skills like interactive design, social media, and coding languages are in demand. The most attractive candidate will bring a talent for strategic insight in addition to creative and technical skills (Vega, 2011). The new advertising agency organization will transition its workers from generalists to specialists in one of four specialties: strategists, creators, connectors, and catalysts. Old titles like vice president or account supervisor will go away, possibly to be replaced with titles that specify job type followed by “senior” or “associate” to designate levels of accountability. Even the workplace will be reimagined to reflect the process of managing campaigns that combine paid, earned, owned, and shared media channels (Elliott, 2011c). The public relations industry is undergoing a self-initiated makeover, recognizing that the profound changes in the earned media channel call for a new definition of its work. New media have made it easier for consumers to learn about corporate blunders; public relations today is more about facilitating an ongoing conversation than influencing what the public believes. The public relations field encourages practitioners to take actions that counter a negative view of public relations as “spin,” such as joining its professional association and adhering to its code of ethics and standards of practice (Elliott, 2011f). Employers today seek people who can create value on the job that technology cannot. The people who succeed will be those who can innovate, adapt, and reinvent their jobs as business practices evolve. The many different marketing career paths have one thing in common: All offer the ability to help an organization succeed. Whether you find your niche in entrepreneurship, organizational work, or a role in a service-providing agency, you will be contributing to building a brand, improving product and service offerings, and enhancing customer loyalty. In the meantime, develop your marketing skills. These will help you sell yourself to potential employers. Field Trip 10.11: Do Ad Agencies Need Young Talent? In 2016 the New York Times ran an article titled “Ad Agencies Need Young Talent. Cue the Beanbag Chairs.” The article described the advertising industry’s need to compete with tech companies and start-ups. Comments on that article pointed out that youth alone is not what the industry needs, but viable solutions to low pay scales, pervasive sexism, racism, and age discrimination. A choice example: “The advertising industry’s primary problem is not recruiting Millennials. At this point, the industry is unable to retain people of any age who possess real talent” (Ember, 2016, para. 64). Read the article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/19/business/media/ad-agencies-need-young-talent-cue-the-bean-bag-chairs.html Questions to Consider Are you prepared to explore the marketing job market and assess the opportunities against your aptitudes and interests? How would you begin such a research project? 10.7 Basic Principles of Marketing: Putting It All Together In 1968 the Virginia Slims cigarette brand was introduced to young professional women with the slogan “You’ve come a long way, baby.” At this point in your study of marketing, you recognize not just the historical era in marketing that the campaign belongs to, but also the ethical issues presented by that product and promotional strategy. You’ve come a long way, baby! You’ve developed an appreciation of the transformation in marketing practice now under way. You are prepared to meet the demands of communicating with consumers who are more media-savvy and more empowered than ever before. You can distinguish between corporate behavior that adds value to the triple bottom line of “people, planet, and profits” and behavior that does not. You are prepared to begin the search for a fulfilling role in the economy in a company you believe in or to pursue more education that will lead to a fulfilling role. This demand for connection between employees’ and employers’ value systems is itself a paradigm shift, one more added to the many that are changing the practice of marketing. This course has introduced you to concepts and processes in the first two chapters, laying a foundation for subsequent exploration of aspects that are under marketers’ control—for example, the marketing mix covered in Chapters 4 through 6. In Chapters 7 and 8 you were called on to contemplate the uncontrollable factors marketers face: the nature of customers; their purchasing behavior, emotions, and motivations; and marketers’ responses to customer behavior, including the STP approach and increasing emphasis on making customers true collaborators in creating the value they seek. You’ve learned about sociocultural, technological, ecological, economic, political, and legal forces in the marketing environment, at home, and around the globe. The final two chapters have drawn you deeper into management of the marketing process and hopefully heightened your awareness of the responsibility you bear to the public, your profession and employer, and your own future when you take a position in the marketing field. This course has been designed to stimulate your enthusiasm for more learning about the business of marketing. If the workplace rather than course work is in your future, the contemporary examples in this course (designed to connect theory to current practice) should help you hit the ground running. Either way, your mastery of the basic principles of marketing will help you succeed. Case Study: Power2give The entrepreneurial approach that founder Scott Provancher brought to developing power2give for his employer, the Arts and Science Council (ASC) of Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina, presents an example of responsible marketing that takes into account a desire to serve the public good, the fund-raising profession, an employer organization, and a young man’s own career. When Provancher, president of the ASC of Charlotte-Mecklenburg, crunched the numbers, he saw red—red ink. The numbers indicated steeply declining dollars from workplace donations. Like many of its peer organizations across the United States, the ASC is an arts agency engaged in grant making, managing public arts programs, and providing services to help artists and organizations. The decline in workplace giving triggered by the 2008 economic downturn severely affected several major employers in the Charlotte area. As the council’s president, ultimate responsibility for donor development lay with Provancher. Luckily, he had a bent for entrepreneurial thinking. Turning the funding crisis into an opportunity for innovation, he developed a new product that would help not only the organization he led but also its peers around the country and the public audiences they ultimately serve. He created power2give. Power2give is an online cultural marketplace listing projects seeking funding in the arts, sciences, and history. The website brings donors and nonprofit organizations together with a simple online interface for describing projects, promoting them, and making donating convenient for both giver and receiver. The powerful but simple idea for this online tool was born out of strategic planning by the ASC in late 2010. Provancher, 36 at the time, assembled ASC staff members and stakeholders to conduct strategic planning. He brought his insights about fund-raising in a Marketing 3.0 world. “People expect more emotional connection with the organizations they donate to,” he recalled saying to his senior staff. “We need to make $25 donors feel like $25,000 donors” (S. Provancher, personal communication, January 2011). Provancher sketched out the site concept and conceived the name. The ASC invested in the website’s development and branding. A year later, the new fund-raising tool was launched. The ASC sought out its peer arts councils in other cities, enrolling them in the power2give platform as host organizations who would promote the tool to both donors and project organizers in their local communities. Provancher knew he wasn’t the first to envision a social media platform model applied to funding for cultural projects. Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com) had been launched in April 2009. But Provancher spotted several weaknesses in how Kickstarter could meet the needs of the types of cultural organizations the ASC typically funded. Responding to these concerns led to features of power2give that differentiate it from Kickstarter, such as tax deductions for donations, an ability to make challenge grants, and a gift card program that allows a donor to select a dollar amount while the recipient selects a project to receive the funds. For the public, power2give provides an easy way to find out about projects of interest, see the progress of fund-raising so far, and use the simple online interface to donate. Donors and other visitors to project sites are encouraged to help promote projects through e-mail and their social media channels. Local host organizations enrolled in power2give invest in comarketing to support the fund-raisers who post projects on the site, and offer training and support in social media marketing. Provancher fulfilled his responsibility to his employer by focusing on building a sound business model for power2give. “We envision rolling this out to hundreds of communities,” Provancher (personal communication) said in January 2011. To succeed, having launched its initial product, the ASC must stay on track to develop needed functionality. Power2give’s creators must convince enough new communities of the power of its fund-raising model to eventually recoup the costs of start-up. Provancher’s responsibility to the ASC requires him to lead power2give’s development so that it contributes to the ASC’s mission. Provancher’s service to the public, the fund-raising profession, and the ASC also serves his own career development—which has taken an unusual path. Trained as a classical percussionist, he didn’t realize marketing was in his DNA until his work in fund-raising for orchestras and subsequently the ASC brought the realization that “marketing is like getting a piece ready for performance. The plan is just notes on a page. Marketing is constantly testing, changing, and adapting the piece to appeal to an audience” (S. Provancher, personal communication, January 2011). He then developed his Brand You with a “layman’s MBA” by taking business courses and reading books and publications such as the Harvard Business Review. When interviewed in 2011, Provancher was grateful to the ASC for the opportunity to explore his entrepreneurial side by developing his idea for power2give, but he recognized that the concept was intellectual property that belonged to his employer. “It’s not the kind of thing you launch and then leave alone,” he mused. “In the future, what will be the best way to govern it? It’s not core to ASC’s mission. Do we grow it or sell it?” (S. Provancher, personal communication, January 2011). Given the nature of employment in Project World, Provancher knew he would face a decision whether to go with power2give as it grows or remain in his leadership position with the ASC. Several concerns faced power2give as the platform rolled from its introductory stage toward responsible growth. pricing it effectively so that all stakeholders—donors, host organizations, and project organizers—perceived good value for dollars exchanged persuading local host organizations and project organizers that the fund-raising model as a concept could work, which meant enhancing their capacity for marketing using social media fearing that project listings on power2give could potentially cannibalize other kinds of giving What happened next for Provancher, the ASC of Charlotte-Mecklenburg, and the power2give platform? “Ultimately, ASC realized it wasn’t in the national crowdfunding business,” he said in a 2017 follow-up interview (S. Provancher, author interview, November 30, 2017). The platform itself was viable, but the ASC leadership decided it would be a better fit for a company with greater mission alignment to managing a platform for a national market. In October 2016 the ASC sold the intellectual property and technology that comprised power2give to Fractured Atlas, a nonprofit technology company providing business tools for artists and nonprofit organizations. “It made much more sense for it to reside with Fractured Atlas, than ASC trying to keep control of it but not have the resources to scale it to its full potential,” Provancher (personal communication, January 2011) said. Regarding the challenges facing power2give itemized above, Theresa Hubbard of Fractured Atlas observed that while there are now more platforms that offer the ability to make tax-deductible donations, the power2give platform incorporates a fiscal sponsorship model, which remains an important differentiator. The platform also reduces the administrative burden on the fund-raising organization. Power2give no longer offers as much comarketing and training support as originally envisioned, but local curators (formerly known as local host organizations) can do so. Fractured Atlas has selected a price that is “fair to all users, while still being competitive,” Hubbard (author interview, November 22, 2017) said. Time proved that fears about fund-raisers’ lack of experience with social media marketing and cannibalization of other forms of fund-raising were unfounded. Hubbard said, “Nonprofits use crowdfunding for specific projects, but turn to more traditional methods of fund-raising for their ongoing activities” (T. Hubbard, author interview, November 22, 2017). Fractured Atlas planned to roll power2give into its own branded crowdfunding platform. Provancher has since left the ASC to form his own professional consulting business to provide services to the nonprofit sector and the people who fund them. “You have concepts, ideas, and projects on one side, and the capital resources to make them happen on the other side, and I saw a lot of opportunity to improve how the people, the ideas, and the capital work together,” Provancher (personal communication, January 2011) said. He launched Lewis & Clark with a focus on strategic consulting on fund-raising campaigns for nonprofits. In 2016 that company acquired Ignite Philanthropy Advisors, which advised foundations on grant making, thus bringing together services for fund-raisers and donors. Today Provancher leads a thriving company rebranded as Ignite Philanthropy. Still entrepreneurial in his thinking, he envisions a business model that allows him to scale through acquisition of similar consulting firms in midsize cities across the United States. “We see philanthropy as the sector we serve—not the projects, not the donors, not the nonprofits, but all of that, together,” Provancher (personal communication, January 2011) said. Provancher’s advice: “Whatever your role, there’s always an opportunity no one has identified yet. You can always tweak, change, or even blow up the model. Entrepreneurs always try to understand the ultimate customer, and keep asking ‘what could we be testing?’” (S. Provancher, personal communication, January 2011). The example of power2give proves that an organization can do well by doing good—and that an individual with a talent for marketing and the spark for entrepreneurship can have real impact (S. Provancher, personal communication, January 2011; S. Provancher, author interview, November 30, 2017). Challenge Question It’s not hard to see the levels of responsibility evident in Scott Provancher’s work with the ASC to develop power2give. But what about an employee who brings an innovative idea to a more traditional, profit-driven organization? Imagine instead a Procter & Gamble employee who comes up with a new product that serves a real market need but doesn’t fit the mission of any of the company’s strategic business units. How do you think the story would develop? Key Ideas to Remember Marketers have a responsibility to serve the public’s well-being. Marketing has been criticized for its negative impacts on individuals, businesses, and society. Companies are realizing that today’s consumers, investors, and other stakeholders expect ethical marketing practices. Organizations large and small, local and global, are expected to adhere to behavior that is socially responsible, culturally sensitive, and sustainable in terms of the entire market system—not merely one organization’s self-interest. Companies that practice corporate social responsibility find it attracts investors, motivates employees, engages consumers, and helps establish a brand position that reduces competition solely on price. Responsibility to the planet responds to consumers’ concerns about ecological degradation and their desire to do business with companies that share humanity-centric values. Green marketing is characterized by practices that minimize the impacts of production processes, packaging, and marketing communication. Marketers must take responsibility for advancing the field of marketing toward higher standards of professionalism. This responsibility requires preparation, including maintaining knowledge of applicable laws and ethical codes, engaging in continuing education, and participating in professional associations. Marketers must work within ethical boundaries, which includes avoiding deceptive communications, protecting individuals’ privacy, and bringing transparency to organizational behavior. Marketers are accountable to their employer organizations. This responsibility includes supporting positive perception of the brand, maintaining good relationships with channel partners, and contributing personally to value creation. When rhetoric becomes divorced from actual behavior, no one benefits; everyone in the organization must walk the talk of ethical marketing. All workers must take responsibility for their careers. Tom Peters foresaw a workplace in which careers consist of increasingly challenging, influential projects that build loyal relationships but do not resemble the traditional climb up a corporate hierarchy. He saw a workplace full of free agents who build their personal brands by applying marketing principles like positioning a brand, developing a unique value proposition, and establishing clear competitive differentiation. While not everyone will be comfortable adopting Peters’s Brand You approach to his or her career, all must commit to doing original work; filling gaps in skills, knowledge, and abilities; and maintaining appropriate boundaries regarding self-promotion for advancement. The marketing profession offers many opportunities for satisfying work experiences, suited to a wide range of personalities and talents. Individuals are responsible for finding a career path that allows them to do their best work while contributing value to their employer. Some marketers work in organizations, while others work in agencies that provide specialized services to those organizations, such as advertising or social media marketing. Some marketers become entrepreneurs who create organizations around their innovative ideas. It’s not uncommon for individuals to move among different career paths in marketing. Wherever you find your niche, your success will derive from your ability to adapt and reinvent yourself and your work as business practices change over time. Critical-Thinking Questions Do you agree that marketing should be considered socially beneficial? Or do you agree with critics who counter that marketing is harmful to individuals, businesses, and society? Choose a side and make your case, recalling the arguments presented in this chapter and adding your own. Businesses are increasingly investing resources in sustainability efforts. Do you think this is because it is the “right thing to do”? Or is it motivated by a desire to increase profits, to attract customers who value sustainability efforts, or perhaps to cut costs? Describe ethical considerations with regard to marketing to children. When the marketers’ pitch includes a cause component, such as a breakfast cereal that promises to provide breakfasts to undernourished schoolchildren, is marketing to children more ethically acceptable? Vicks’ use of behavioral targeting to promote its Behind Ear Thermometer illustrated use of personal data by a company outside the relationship between the consumer and the mobile apps with which that data had been shared. This is perfectly legal. But is it ethical? At what point does commercial use of personal data constitute abuse of the public’s trust? Use of brand ambassadors and product placement were cited in this chapter as examples that blur the boundary between promotional messages and other kinds of communication. How can an average consumer know when a pitch is being made, and by whom? What steps do you feel marketers should take to make sure their tactics are not deceptive? Consider your purchase behavior as a consumer: Do you looking for the lowest prices? Do you take into account the reputation of brands you consider? If your behavior is typical of most consumers, do you feel that companies can afford to be socially responsible and still be competitive? Give evidence to support your answer. Evaluate individuals’ ability to affect the social responsibility of their employers’ brands. This might involve responsibility to channel partners, as in the hypothetical example of SkyView Foods in this chapter, or responsibility to customers, as in the highly publicized occurrence in 2017 of Wells Fargo Bank employees creating 1.4 million fake accounts as a result of a corporate culture of high-pressure sales. If you were an employee of SkyView Foods or Wells Fargo Bank, what steps could you take to improve your employer’s social responsibility? How might you apply the insights of permission marketing—that true one-to-one relationships are built on an agreement to accept contact between seller and buyer—to your search for a job in the marketing field? In your judgment, should a company invest in individuals who adhere to the Brand You philosophy that places loyalty to self ahead of loyalty to an employer? Why or why not? Key Terms to Remember Click on each key term to see the definition. benefit corporation  (or B corp) A type of for-profit corporate entity, authorized by 30 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, that includes positive impact on society and the environment in addition to profit as its legally defined goals. ethical marketing  The application of ethics in the marketing process. Involves demonstrating behavior that is socially responsible, culturally sensitive, and sustainable across the entire market system. fair use  The use of copyrighted material for a specific, limited, and transformative purpose, such as to comment on, criticize, or parody that copyrighted work; does not require permission from the copyright owner. green marketing  The marketing of an organization, product, or service characterized by minimized environmental impact. Incorporates a broad range of activities, including modifications to product production processes, packaging, and advertising. greenwashing  Deceptive marketing communications that promote a perception that policies or products are environmentally friendly. intellectual property  The output of the minds of individuals that has commercial value, including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works, protected by copyright laws. low-profit limited liability company (L3C)  A hybrid of a type of LLC intended for ventures with a social mission as their primary goal. Unlike a charity, the L3C is free to distribute retained earnings after taxes to owners or investors. mashup  A combination of preexisting elements into a new work, often used in music and web application design but applicable to all types of creative output; a potential concern when it violates the intellectual property rights attached to the preexisting elements. opt-in  Express permission by an individual to accept contact (for example by mail, e-mail, or telephone) from marketers, which might take the form of merchandise, information, or persuasive messages. opt-out  Express instruction by an individual to stop contact by marketers, which might consist of merchandise, information, or more messages. parody  A work that imitates for humorous effect another, usually well-known, copyrighted work; unlike other forms of fair use, in a parody more extensive use of the original work is permitted. permission marketing  Marketing centered on gaining customer consent to receive information from a company. See also opt-in and opt-out. social enterprise model  Guidelines that apply business strategies to achieving philanthropic goals, such as social progress or environmental health; may be structured as a for-profit or nonprofit. transparency  The use of nondeceptive tactics and ready disclosure of the motivation behind observable action.