Page 192 - The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

184 The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

technique in commercial advertising, several critics found it objectionable
in a social marketing campaign.
marketing is unfair. Commercial marketing and advertising are re-
quired by U.S. law to be nondeceptive, but fair marketing and advertising
typically go beyond the law and require ethical and responsible behavior
by commercial marketers (Drumwright, 2014). Fair social marketing
would compel these marketers to be forthright and transparent about any
trade-offs, risks, or uncertainties involved in the behaviors that they are
promoting. It would also prompt them to take into account any vulnera-
bilities of their target consumers that would hinder those consumers in
making independent, competent, and informed decisions. For example, in
certain circumstances, some consumers (e.g., children, the elderly, the il-
literate) may not have the skills or the capabilities to make choices about
social marketing behaviors competently. Fair social marketing would also
refrain from appeals that have detrimental effects, such as graphic fear ap-
peals that create dysfunctional anxiety (e.g., safe driving campaigns that
show pedestrians bouncing off the hoods of automobiles).
New media create new opportunities for persuasion and raise new ethical
issues. For example, social marketers target children with “advergames”
on websites (Cai, 2008; Cicchirillo & Lin, 2011; Moore, 2004, 2014).
Advergames are videogames with branded content that prompt extended en-
gagement from children, often exposing them to promotional messages for
10 to 15 minutes. Research has demonstrated that advergames affect aware-
ness, attitudes, and choice (Hernandez & Chapa, 2010; Moore & Rideout,
2007; Mallinckrodt & Mizerski, 2007), and that children often have diffi-
culty distinguishing entertainment from persuasion in advergames as well as
on websites and in viral marketing (Cicchirillo, 2014; Eastin, Yang, &
Nathanson, 2006). Fair social marketing should take into account the limita-
tions of children and the potentially problematic characteristics of the me-
dium (e.g., the entertainment and extended play prompted by advergames).
It would behoove social marketers to apply the consumer sovereignty
test, which was designed to help commercial marketers assess informed
choice (Smith, 1995). It addresses three issues:

1. Do consumers have the capability to make an independent and competent
decision, or do they have vulnerabilities that limit their capacities (e.g., age,
education, income)?
2. Do consumers have sufficient information to make a competent and independ-
ent decision?
3. Do consumers have a choice and the opportunity to change their minds with-
out excessive switching costs?