Marketing communication: principles and practice

THE CORE ASSUMPTIONS OF CONSUMERISM
One force that managers cannot ignore is the basic right of consumers and
buyers to be able to use accurate and full information, to receive safe products,
to have adequate product choices, and to use products that do not harm the
physical and psychological environment. A trend, begun in the 1960s, is
consumer and buyer rebellion against marketing hyperbole and corporations
that purposefully mislead, offer restricted choice of alternatives, or sell unsafe
products. This trend is manifest in consumerism. Actions may be taken by
consumer activist groups, government agencies, and (sometimes) corpora-
tions to protect consumers in the process of exchange.
Marketing communication managers have a responsibility to ensure that
their communication systems are providing information about products in
an ethical fashion:
• markets alone cannot deal with the consumer’s need for free and fair
information
• consumers need information if they are to avoid unscrupulous and
inefficient suppliers
• inadequate goods will survive unless consumers have adequate information
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• companies are not the only suppliers of such information
We have emphasized that marketing managers must try to understand
consumer behaviour (see chapter three), but the consumer/buyer perspective
can be very different. How do the respective perspectives differ? Table 17.1
summarizes three important differences.
What are the implications of these differing views on the marketing
exchange? Marketer’s decisions and actions could lead to deceptive adver-
tising, limited product choices, inadequate attention to product safety, and
avoidance of ecological responsibilities. Consumerism has arisen to protect
against the few instances of abuse when the free market fails. The term
consumerism has four distinct meanings:
1 a set of values
2 a way of life
3 a political ideology
4 the process of advancing the cause of consumers in their role as purchasers
and users of goods and services, through organized reaction to real or
imagined inadequacies of marketers, markets, market mechanisms,
government, and consumer policy
Marketers can best accomplish profit goals in solid exchange relationships
with customers by offering high-quality products and accurate information.