PST FTN

Archive for September, 2009

Changing societal values have led to the consumerism movement. Today everyone-—marketers, industry, government, and the public—is acutely aware of the impact of consumerism on the nation’s economy and general well-being. Consumerism has been defined as a social force within the environment designed to aid and protect the buyer byexerting legal, moral, and economic pressures on business. This definition sums up society’s demand that organizations apply the marketing concept.

In recent years, marketers have witnessed increasing consumer activism. Animal-rights activists have demonstrated against furriers and firms that test their products on animals. Marketers of canned tuna have been criticized for promoting sales of tuna caught by nets that also trap and kill dolphins.
No organization or industry is immune to this activism. Almost every winter brings television news coverage of stranded travelers in airports across the nation. Anyone who has ever flown on a commercial airline in the past ten years can probably remember at least one snafli—delayed or canceled flights, confusing rules about carry-on luggage and check-in times, and lost luggage. A combination of bad weather, record numbers of air travelers, and canceled flights produced a record number of complaints during 2001, and the problem is expected to get worse. But consumers have begun to fight back by petitioning Congress to enact a bill of rights for airline passengers. Says Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, one of several members of Congress supporting such a bill, “When people are treated like so many pieces of cargo, it’s not surprising that some of them lash out.” Bills pending in both houses of Congress would require airlines to inform passengers of the reasons for all flight delays and to compensate passengers held aboard stationary aircraft for more than two hours.18
Boycotts are another effective consumerist approach. The number of boycotts against various corporations has risen in recent years to include companies from almost every industry: Nike, McDonald’s, Disney, Monsanto, and British Airways have all been targeted in recent years. Even the threat of a boycott can bring results.
Firms, however, do not fulfill all consumer demands. A competitive marketing system emerges from the individual actions of competing firms. The U.S. economic system requires that firms achieve reasonable profit objectives. Businesses cannot meet all consumer demands and still generate enough profits to remain viable. This choice defines one of the most difficult dilemmas facing society today. Given these constraints, what should buyers have the right to expect from the competitive marketing system?
The most frequently quoted statement of consumer rights was made by President John E
Kennedy in 1962. ‘While this list does not amount to a definitive statement, it offers good rules
of thumb that explain basic consumer rights:
1. The right to choose freely. Consumers should be able to choose from among a range of goods and services.
2. The right to be informed. Consumers should be provided with enough education and product information to enable them to be responsible buyers.
3. The right to be heard. Consumers should be able to express their legitimate displeasure to appropriate parties—that is, sellers, consumer assistance groups, and city or state consumer affairs offices.
4. The right to be safe. Consumers should be assured that the goods and services they purchase are not injurious with normal use. Goods and services should be designed in such a way
that the average consumer can use them safely.
These rights have formed the conceptual framework of much of the consumer legislation passed in the first 40 years of the movement. However, the question of how best to guarantee these.
Consumer concern for the nutritional value of the food they purchase has led to labeling regulations. Marketers of packaged food must ensure that product label de-
signs provide information such as weight, date of packaging or expiration, ingredients, and nutritional values. Although the laws do not include prepared foods, some restaurants and fast-food chains like Subway now include nutritional information on their menus. Recently, the FDA gave cereal-maker General Mills permission to advertise on packages of its whole-grain cereals, such as Cheerios, Total, Wheaties, and other qualifying foods, that eating these whole-grain foods is beneficial to their health. Cereal marketers want to let consumers know that eating a diet high in whole-grain foods and are also low in fat may reduce the risk of heart disease and certain cancers. To qualify, a food must contain 51 percent or more whole grain ingredients by weight. Earlier, the FDA had allowed marketers to emphasize the disease-fighting benefits of foods rich in dietary fiber, but not whole-grain foods.29
The social-cultural environment for marketing decisions at home and abroad is expanding in scope and importance. Today, no marketer can initiate a strategic decision without taking into account the society’s norms, values, culture, and demographics. Marketers must understand how these variables affect their decisions. The constant influx of social issues requires that marketing managers focus on addressing these questions instead of concerning themselves only with the standard marketing tools. Some firms have created a new position—typically, manager of public policy research—to study the changing societal environment’s future impact on their organizations.