Page 15 - The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

8 The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

chapter. One class of issues is related to the “cause,” that is the objectives
or outcomes associated with the social marketing campaign. As Andreasen
asked in Chapter 2, is the recruitment of Al Qaeda operatives an appropri-
ate and ethical use of social marketing? Not all causes enjoy broad sup-
port, and there are important ethical issues associated with whether and in
what circumstances it is appropriate to try to persuade others to join the
cause. The second class of ethical dilemmas raised in the chapter is related
to the means by which others are persuaded or induced to behave in a
particular way. Even when there is broad agreement about the positive
value of a cause, there may be some approaches to persuasion that are
problematic, unethical, or even illegal. For example, is it appropriate to
deceive people if the deception is for their own good? The authors of
Chapter 7 offer a very cogent discussion of these dilemmas.
Ethical issues are always important but become especially so in the con-
text of especially powerful tools and techniques for persuasion and social
control. There is a long history of the popular press and others touting the
idea that marketing is a powerful force that must be controlled. However,
the evidence shows that marketing is not such a strong force and the com-
petition that exists in most commercial markets creates a strong balance of
power between marketers and consumers. Indeed, with the benefit of
hindsight it is clear that even powerful, so-called monopolies have been
reined in more by competitive forces and innovation in the marketplace
than by government intervention. Social marketing is different, however.
There is generally an absence of competition, and to the degree that there
exist alternatives they are often framed as inappropriate, bad, or worse.
This raises the questions of how powerful social marketing might be and
what limits exist with respect to the exercise of that power.
Chapter 8 offers a meta-analysis of the effects of social marketing and
identifies some important empirical generalizations. The analysis offered in
the chapter makes clear that while social marketing interventions have pos-
itive effects, these effects tend to be small. So, like marketing in general,
social marketing does not appear to be a strong force. This will be greeted
as good news by some but as disappointing to others. An important finding
of the analysis suggests that markets operate even in the context of social
welfare: corporate misconduct appears to harm the financial performance
of firms, while positive social and environmental performance improves
financial performance. This latter finding suggests that there may be far
more alignment between the objectives of the firm and improvements in
social welfare than is suggested by some critics of business.
An important tenet of marketing in general and of many—if not all—of
those who practice social marketing, is that marketing programs should be