Page 42 - index

MARKETING ETHICS

Why Consumers increasingly view PHOTO: ISTOCKPHOTO
manipulating marketing as manipulation. It
consumers is not is important to dispel this notion
and the profession should
marketing take steps to do so, writes
Professor Hubert Gatignon.

THERE CAN BE LITTLE
argument that consumers are
growing more suspicious of
business. They question its motives
and, increasingly, it is marketing which
is being said to be manipulative.
Consumers are ever more aware of
the array of Internet pop-ups and
exaggerated claims they receive in an
increasingly targeted fashion, especially
on social media channels.

Cass Sunstein, a Harvard Law
Professor and former Administrator
of the Office of Information and
Regulatory Affairs in President Obama’s
administration, recently published an
essay in the European Marketing
Academy’s peer-reviewed publication,
the Journal of Marketing Behaviour,
which argues that manipulation is indeed
pervasive in daily life, both in public and
commercial realms, and is especially
prevalent in marketing. Sunstein believes
“those who sell products are engaged in
at least arguable forms of manipulation”.

He defines manipulation as something
that does not sufficiently engage or
appeal to someone’s capacity for
reflective and deliberative choice. But
this is problematic. Many choices are
made without reflective deliberation.
Furthermore, the notion of consumers
making cognitive and purely rational
decisions is a myth, at best. Customers
are also becoming more aware of
marketing, its motives and its tactics –
from price discrimination and discounts
to loyalty programmes and atmospherics
– and may discount it in their decisions.

Nevertheless, in a reply article,
I point out that this awareness is

40 strategicmarketing August–September 2016