Business and Management INK

Philip Kotler on Marketing With a Conscience

January 2, 2013 1588
philip_kotler

kellogg.northwestern.edu

In the latest edition of the American Marketing Association’s Marketing News, Philip Kotler, the S.C. Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, explains why “marketing needs a conscience”:

​In the 1960s, during the heyday of tobacco advertising, one of the tobacco companies wanted to hire me as a consultant. I declined and told them that I would rather promote anti-smoking than smoking. I am sure that the company concluded that I was anti-business. The real answer is that I had a conscience, something that most companies at the time didn’t think should play a role in marketing.

My conscience was formed by the writings of early critics of marketing, including John Kenneth Galbraith (The Affluent Society), Vance Packard (The Hidden Persuaders) and Rachel Carson (Silent Spring). They wrote about marketers neglecting citizens’ needs in the public sector, about the manipulative power of advertising and how pesticides were poisoning our water supply.

SMQ_v18n3_72ppiRGB_powerpointYou can read the complete article at marketingpower.com (registration required). Then, head over to Social Marketing Quarterly for the latest articles on marketing with a conscience, including “The Science of Goal Setting: A Practitioner’s Guide to Goal Setting in the Social Marketing of Conservation,” published on December 27 by Daniel Hayden and Fangzhou Deng, both of the Rare conservation group in Arlington, VA:

Goal setting within social marketing campaigns is art and science. An analysis of Rare Pride conservation campaigns shows the quantitative, replicable relationship among the impact of these conservation campaigns with diffusion of innovation theory, and collective behavior theory that can guide marketers to set better goals. Rare is an environmental conservation organization that focuses on reducing community-based threats to biodiversity through a social marketing campaign called Pride. Pride campaigns work by removing barriers to change (whether they are technical, social, and political or something else) and inspiring people to make change happen. Based on the analysis of historical Pride campaign survey data, we found that the starting percentage of engagement has a great influence on the percentage change at the end of the campaign: The higher the initial adoption level of knowledge, attitude, and behavior change, the easier these measures are to improve. The result also suggests a difference in the potential of change with different audience segments: It is easiest to change influencer, then general public, and finally resource user who are the target of the social marketing campaign. In this article, we will analyze how to use diffusion of innovation and collective behavior theories to explain the impact of campaigns, as well as how to set more attainable goals. This article is consistent with similar research in the field of public health, which should help marketers set goals more tightly, allocate resources more effectively, and better manage donor expectations.

Click here to read the article and here to sign up for e-alerts so you don’t miss upcoming research from Social Marketing Quarterly.

Business and Management INK puts the spotlight on research published in our more than 100 management and business journals. We feature an inside view of the research that’s being published in top-tier SAGE journals by the authors themselves.

View all posts by Business & Management INK

Related Articles

The Role of Place in Sustainability
Business and Management INK
October 28, 2024

The Role of Place in Sustainability

Read Now
Turning to Glitter in Management Studies – Why We Should Take ‘Unserious’ Glitter Serious to Understand New Management Practices
Business and Management INK
October 24, 2024

Turning to Glitter in Management Studies – Why We Should Take ‘Unserious’ Glitter Serious to Understand New Management Practices

Read Now
Utilizing Academic-Practitioner Partnering for Societal Impact
Business and Management INK
September 17, 2024

Utilizing Academic-Practitioner Partnering for Societal Impact

Read Now
Trippin’ Forward: Management Research and the Development of Psychedelics
Business and Management INK
September 9, 2024

Trippin’ Forward: Management Research and the Development of Psychedelics

Read Now
Using Ethnography to Explore Entrepreneurial Extracurricular Activities

Using Ethnography to Explore Entrepreneurial Extracurricular Activities

Co-authors Birgitte Wraae and Nicolai Nybye reflect on the inspiration behind their research article, “Learning to Be “Me,” “the Team,” and “the Company” Through Entrepreneurial Extracurricular Activities: An Ethnographic Approach,” published in Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy.

Read Now
The Future of Business is Interdisciplinary 

The Future of Business is Interdisciplinary 

By actively collaborating with industry, developing interdisciplinary programs and investing in hands-on learning opportunities, business schools can equip graduates with the specific skills and experiences that employers are seeking.

Read Now
The Co-Creation Edge in Marketing Education

The Co-Creation Edge in Marketing Education

In this article, co-authors Maria Petrescu, John T. Gironda, Anjala S. Krishen, Adina Dudau, J. Ricky Fergurson, Steven A. Stewart, Philip Kitchen, and Monica Fine reflect on the inspiration behind […]

Read Now
0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

0 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments