Opposing Ethical Arguments About Marketing
Paper instructions:
Course Book: Kotler, P., & Keller, K. (2012). Marketing Management (14th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Link to Course Book: http://www.youblisher.com/p/465163-MARKETING-MANAGEMENT-by-philip-kotler-14th-EDITION/
Required Readings: Chapters 1-2
Instructions
Upon completion of the Required Readings, write a thorough, well-planned narrative answer to the following discussion question. Rely on the Required Readings and the Lecture and Research Update attached to this assignment for specific information to answer the discussion question, but turn to your original thoughts when asked to apply, evaluate, analyze, or synthesize the information. Your Discussion Question responses should be both grammatically and mechanically correct, and formatted in the same fashion as the questions themselves. You must include an abstract and appropriately cite all resources used in your responses and document in a bibliography using APA style.
The Assignment: State the opposing ethical arguments about marketing: Does marketing satisfy or create customer’s needs and wants? Compare and contrast these arguments in terms of benefits and detrimental effects on individuals, businesses, and the societies or nations in which they function. Finally, evaluate the arguments, supporting your stance for one argument over the other. (20 points) (A 1-page response is required.)
N.B. Please see Professor’s Note attached.
Course Book: Kotler, P., & Keller, K. (2012). Marketing Management (14th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Link to Course Book: http://www.youblisher.com/p/465163-MARKETING-MANAGEMENT-by-philip-kotler-14th-EDITION/
Required Readings: Chapters 1-2
Instructions
Upon completion of the Required Readings, write a thorough, well-planned narrative answer to the following discussion question. Rely on the Required Readings and the Lecture and Research Update attached to this assignment for specific information to answer the discussion question, but turn to your original thoughts when asked to apply, evaluate, analyze, or synthesize the information. Your Discussion Question responses should be both grammatically and mechanically correct, and formatted in the same fashion as the questions themselves. You must include an abstract and appropriately cite all resources used in your responses and document in a bibliography using APA style.
The Assignment: State the opposing ethical arguments about marketing: Does marketing satisfy or create customer’s needs and wants? Compare and contrast these arguments in terms of benefits and detrimental effects on individuals, businesses, and the societies or nations in which they function. Finally, evaluate the arguments, supporting your stance for one argument over the other. (20 points) (A 1-page response is required.)
Lecture and Research Update from the Professor
You will receive the greatest benefit from the following Lecture and Research Update if you first read this narrative, review the lesson, study the Required Readings, then come back to this section and carefully re-read this Lecture and Research Update. The “lecture” portion of this narrative focuses on issues from the textbook that need further explanation, while the “research update” portion integrates supportive information from recent professional academic and trade articles with the textbook information.
Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating and, delivering and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. (American Marketing Association, 2008)
When one thinks of marketing, often only stores and products come to mind; however, all organizations now use some form of marketing. Corporations, associations, government agencies, and even hospitals must now market themselves in order to communicate with desired audiences. Deregulation has also made it necessary for industries such as banking, telecommunications, and transportation to focus on marketing. Increases in global activity and the changing technology of the Internet have opened new overseas markets along with doors to an entirely new world of marketing opportunities. These changes give place to several kinds of marketing strategies.
Holistic Marketing
According to Kotler and Keller (2012), “without question, the trends and forces that have defined the first decade of the 21st century are leading business firms to a new set of beliefs and practices.” (p.18)
Marketers in the twenty-first century are increasingly recognizing the need to have a more complete, cohesive approach that goes beyond traditional applications of the marketing concept. This is the concept of holistic marketing.: Holistic marketing encompasses everything. Everything matters – from the product or service to staff involvement, from customer relationships to societal impacts – everything matters.
Coric, Vokic and Polaski (2009) define what is holistic marketing philosophy:
…a holistic marketing philosophy could be defined as the organizational philosophy of integrative, interdependent and focused efforts of all organizational functions and employees in promoting and living the idea of high-quality internal relationships for the purpose of fruitful external relationships, with the final aim of being profitable and socially responsible organization. (n.p.)
When the marketing strategy permeates every aspect of the business, the options are limitless. Companies are able to focus on results without any one department or function moving forward with an independent plan. Everyone is marching to the beat of the same drummer, with no time or effort wasted. Examples of some of the components of a holistic marketing approach include the following types of marketing: integrated marketing, relationship marketing, socially responsible marketing, and internal marketing.
Integrated and Relationship Marketing
Integrated marketing deals with products and services, distribution channels, and communications. It is an integrated approach to new product development requiring managers’ willingness to test long-standing procedures and entrenched cultural and political structures within an organization, to see beyond short-term setbacks, and to do what is best for the firm Bringing every operational area together in the decision-making process ensures that the organization as a whole is moving in the same direction. It also helps everyone understand interdependencies. This awareness results in improved efficiencies since everyone is cognizant of and responsive to the departmentally specific considerations for achieving success.
These days, the influence of social media brings its own challenge to the practice of integrated marketing. John Hartinger, vice president of interactive marketing for A&E Network says of integrated marketing: “Our definition is marketing, promotions and campaigns that reach across a number of different media disciplines, and that combine external partners and alliances, to produce nontraditional PR experiences.” His use of the term “nontraditional” brings the role of social media in integrated marketing to light. He sees social media’s big role in integrated marketing as fostering a dialogue and extending the conversation beyond paid advertising. (PR News, 2009, p. 87).
In a recent roundtable discussion of marketers, Tim Van Hoof of State Farm Insurance, states that there’s certainly a brand level of integration: marketers wanting things to look, feel and sound consistent. But he finds the greater challenge to be integrating the brand to the conversation in social media versus multimedia push messaging, He says the experience is what really needs to be integrated, not only what marketers say and how they interact, but how they deliver. He frames the challenge this way: “How do we tailor it so it feels like it’s the same brand and a consistent message but allows the consumer to interact, engage and tailor it to their needs?”(DM News, 2010).
Take the integrated marketing initiative Kodak executives launched in 2007 to promote the company’s new line of all-in-one inkjet printers, for which the main differentiating factor was their use of low-cost, premium ink cartridges. According to Barbara Pierce, public relations director, worldwide marketing and communications for Kodak, the team planned an integrated marketing campaign with digital and traditional components. The digital pieces were developed specifically with viral marketing in mind: Online tactics included Web videos, interactive games, a print-cost calculator widget and a dedicated Web site (www.inkisit.com), all of which employed humor. Each of these tactics supplemented the traditional marketing components they used. (PR News, 2009).
Relationship marketing, which involves partner, supplier, channel, and customer relationships, requires cultivating the right kinds of relationships with the right constituent groups. Both customer relationship management (CRM) and partner relationship management (PRM) are important in relationship marketing. Additionally, the text identifies four key marketing entities:
1.Customers
2.Employees
3.Marketing partners including channels, suppliers, distributors, and agencies
4.Members of the financial community such as shareholders, investors, and analysts
By satisfying the needs of these four key groups, a company ensures its continued success.
A company that successfully merged relationship marketing and internal marketing in its recent campaign is Lincoln Financial Services. The company is the nation’s number-three seller of insurance products and number five in annuity products, with $153 billion in assets under management. With the challenges the banking and financial companies faced recently in building brand loyalty, Lincoln Financial wanted to reestablish trust with consumers with a marketing campaign. Their managers know that any marketing campaign needs to begin from the inside out, with the company employees who are essential in bringing the brand and its message to life. In launching their You’re In Charge marketing platform on national TV on Thanksgiving Day, the Fortune 250 firm orchestrated a major internal launch campaign targeting its 8,000 employees. For Lincoln Financial’s employees, You’re In Charge is about empowerment and taking the lead at work—in how they conduct themselves and serve customers. “The message is, ‘How did I help customers take charge of their lives today?’ They promoted the same message inside and outside, knowing that employees are part of this process because they’re the ones delivering the brand to their customers and sales channel partners every day. (Ng, 2012).
Socially Responsible Marketing
Socially responsible marketing is the term used for marketing practices that promote the betterment of society: It includes the considerations of the community and the environment as well as legal and ethical issues. With the focus of marketing shifting toward the consumer, social responsibility and marketing ethics have come to the forefront of business considerations. For an organization to embrace ethical applications in its decision making, a culture that adopts ethical standards across the board must be developed. This holistic approach can only happen when a full spectrum of socially responsible practices are promoted from the top. In an organization where management emphasizes ethical practices, employees are more likely to include ethical reasoning in their decision-making processes. Also, no longer are consumers only talking about promoting socially responsible business practices, they are now changing their spending habits in order to influence businesses to act responsibly.
As part of their corporate social responsibility, many organizations practice cause-related marketing in which organizations donate to a chosen cause with every consumer purchase. Studies identified the importance of the fit between the organization and the nature of the cause in influencing corporate image, as well as the influence of a connection between the cause and consumer preferences on brand attitudes and brand choice. (Vanhamme, Lindgreen, Reast & van Popering, 2012).
Internal Marketing
Internal marketing, comprised of relationships among the marketing department, senior management, and other departments, is “the task of hiring, training, and motivating able employees who want to serve customers well” (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p. 21). Often, internal marketing activities are even more vital to the company than external activities are. Before companies can focus on the external marketing of their products or services, they have to set the stage internally. Pricing, promotion, and positioning are of little value without the ability to focus on the consumers in order to identify and fill their needs. In addition, strong brand identity is achieved when an institutionalized internal brand management complements the external, market-oriented brand management.
Once the talent is hired and the stage is set, the organization must reinforce desireable behaviors. Measurement and reward systems accomplish this task. These include systems that link individual behavior and business objectives, those that define and align objectives, and those used for the performance management process. The organization must look beyond traditional methods of measurement, such as accounting measurements that look only at past performance, to other factors that influence behavior in the work place.
Empowering internal staff is the final component of a successful internal marketing strategy, as demonstrated by the Lincoln Financial Services campaign mentioned above. (Ng, 2012). Turning employees’ passion and power into results through teaming and gainsharing (a system that includes a financial measurement and feedback system), for example, has completely changed the environment at New Jersey-based NYF, a privately owned distributor of electronic hardware. Teaming and gainsharing have released the organization’s creativity and have allowed it to use the knowledge, skills, flexibility, and drive of the employee base. NYF has evolved to a truly empowered team culture that promotes the cooperation and flexibility necessary to respond rapidly to changing conditions. (Remmen, 2003)
This empowered team model promotes initiative and innovation, eliminates passing customer requests around by encouraging decision making, and leads to explosive sales growth. Employees are provided with opportunities to expand skills by working within and among teams to broaden their experience. Leadership rewards staff members with increases in base compensation. Gainsharing monitors company performance and then distributes gains in the form of bonuses when appropriate.
Open-book management involves sharing the revenues and cost figures with employees so that they can gauge the company’s performance versus the goals upon which their gain-sharing compensation is based. Even the decision to increase staff is made jointly by the employee teams and leadership. By knowing the “internal customer” and leveraging the “freedom factor,” morale improves visibly, correlating with an increase in sales and profitability that has been sustained over the years. As Covic, et al (2009) noted, the drive for a holistic internal marketing philosophy should come from the top management. The responsibility for its dissemination is on the middle management. However, the everyday implementation should be the responsibility of all employees.
PowerPoint Lecture Notes
Use the lecture notes available in PowerPoint as you study this chapter by CLICKING THE LINK BELOW. These notes will help you identify main concepts and ideas presented in this chapter.
If you do not have PowerPoint on your computer, you can download a free viewer from Microsoft by clicking here.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Lecture and Research Update Bibliography
American Marketing Association. (2007). Definition of marketing. www.marketingpower.com/AboutAMA/Pages/ Definitionof.aspx.
Anonymous. (Dec. 2010). Integrated marketing begins with the experience. DM News, 32.19, 37-41.
Anonymous. (Apr 20, 2009). Get buzzed: driving bottom-line results via integrated marketing. PR News, 65.16, n/a.
Coric, D., Vokic, N. & Poloski. Z. (Nov 2009). The roles of internal communications, human resource management and marketing concepts in determining holistic internal marketing philosophy. International Review of Economics & Business, 12.2, 87-105.
Kotler, P., & Keller, K. (2012). Marketing management (14th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Ng. W. (2012). How one fortune 250 company used internal marketing to drive engagement. http://www.incentivemag.com/Incentive-Programs/Engagement/Articles/How-One-Fortune-250-Company-Used Internal-Marketing-to-Drive-Engagement/.
Remmen, D. (March 2003). Performance pays off. Strategic Finance, 84(9), 27-32.
Vanhamme, J., Lindgreen, A., Reast, J. & van Popering, N. (Sep 2012). To do well by doing good: improving corporate image through cause-related marketing. Journal of Business Ethics, 109.3, 259-274.
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