Page 193 - The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

Ethical Issues of Social Marketing and Persuasion 185

Note that the consumer sovereignty test does not deal with stakeholders
other than the consumers of the offering, but other stakeholders often are
important constituents of social marketing (e.g., volunteers, donors, citi-
zens at large, partner organizations).
marketing is wasteful. It can be expensive to differentiate offerings
and communicate persuasive messages in a competitive marketplace.
Social marketing has “long been called to task for spending money on
marketing social causes” (Murphy & Bloom, 1990), and as competition
has increased in the social marketplace, so have social marketing expendi-
tures. Public agencies and nonprofit organizations are expected to be good
stewards of their resources, and social marketing is no exception. Concerns
about wastefulness raise several issues for social marketers.
First, one must consider whether social marketing is the best way to
bring about the desired social change. Social marketers should consider
whether resources could be more effectively spent on other nonprofit and
government functions. For example, would money for smoking cessation
be better spent on hiring more counselors rather than on social marketing?
Murphy and Bloom (1990) suggested that some beneficial social market-
ing causes may be so well accepted that widespread promotion is unneces-
sary. In a competitive marketplace, one can imagine an organization
engaging in social marketing more for its own organizational branding
purposes than because the cause itself requires marketing.
Second, social marketers must consider whether the causes, consumers,
and society at large are better off after the causes have been marketed.
Particularly with protest and revolutionary causes, as one faction increases
spending on marketing, the ante is upped, and the other factions typically
follow suit (e.g., a cause version of the cola wars). In addition to wasted
resources, the effect may be that conflicting, negative messages confuse
consumers and/or cause them to react cynically (Murphy & Bloom, 1990).
For instance, the initial social marketing related to giving Gardasil, the
vaccine for the human papillomavirus (HPV), to teenage girls was quite
partisan, and there was some indication that it confused consumers.
marketing plays favorites. Market segmentation, “the process of di-
viding a market into distinct subsets of customers that behave in the same
way or have similar needs” (American Marketing Association, 2008, “mar-
ket segmentation”) is typically at the heart of effective marketing strategy.
In commercial marketing, attractive market segments typically are those
that are the most profitable: people who can afford to pay, who are recep-
tive, and/or who can be reached with little—or at least reasonable—cost.
In contrast, in social marketing, the segments that need the social market-
ing message the most are often those who can least afford to pay, who are