Page 273 - The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

Public Support for Regulating the Public 249

imposing postpurchase restrictions is a very common and sometimes con-
troversial policy tool.
As shown, a particular behavior can be banned entirely or under speci-
fied conditions relating to who may do it, when it may be done, or where
it may be done. In other cases, a particular behavior may be required by
law or as a condition of using a product or public service. A product may
be made illegal; be required to have (or not have) certain features; or be
sold only at specified times, only through approved places, or only to a
given class of people. It should also be clear that single policy actions can
impact multiple P’s concurrently.
The examples illustrate two simple points. The first is the pervasiveness
and diversity of such remedies in the market. The second is that even
though the motivation for the remedies is to achieve a “social good,” the
consequences of the remedies often fall upon private companies in general
and their marketing activities in particular. It is for this reason that even
policies that, from a consumer perspective, could be construed as “liberat-
ing” (e.g., making retail stores handicapped-accessible) have an element of
coercion (e.g., forcing retail stores to reconfigure their aisles) that requires
policy change. It is important to note that almost all of these upstream ac-
tions were ultimately the product of persuasive upstream marketing efforts
that strategically influenced policy makers and public opinion.

Forces Driving the Upstream Remedy Trend

There is a multiplicity of forces providing the impetus for the remedy
revolution (or rapid evolution)—the movement away from education and
toward other remedies. In addition, there has been an increased use of hy-
brid remedies, such as mandated warnings or marketing restrictions. These
remedies are hybrid in the sense that, like education, they convey informa-
tive or persuasive messages to consumers, but they are disseminated as a
result of coercion exerted upon marketers. This section briefly discusses
some of the most important forces. We assume that most are well known to
the reader, and our contribution is to explicitly link these trends to the
question of why coercive remedies are being so widely advocated and sup-
ported. We should also add that we do not endorse or condemn any of
these reasons; we acknowledge their power without passing judgment.
All arguments for coercive remedies begin with the observation that less
coercive remedies have failed or are very unlikely (if essayed) to succeed.
Often this observation is followed by making a reference to tobacco or drunk
driving, where reductions in tobacco use (or drunk driving) are attributed to
greater policy changes (e.g., stricter laws for driving while intoxicated,