Marketing as a Good or Evil Component in Society - Essay Example

MARKETING AS A GOOD OR EVIL: EFFECTS ON ADVERTISING & GAMBLING Prepared by (Student’s Name) Course Name University Name Professor’s Name Date Introduction The notion of marketing in society has been faced with intensive levels of criticism over time. Thus, having a discussion that ascertains its “evil or good” capability is of paramount importance in ascertaining how it has affected the society as a whole. This paper presents a debate about whether marketing is a good or evil component especially in relation to the aspects of advertising and gambling. Marketing as a Good or Evil Component in Society Despite the numerous criticisms in regards to the activities of marketing; there still lie reasons as to why it is still considered to be playing a fundamental role in the society. These reasons are discussed as below; First, the proponents of the notion ascertain that marketing has continued to assist with the production and acceptance of new products and services, many of which has enriched people’s daily lives (Hensel & Dubinsky, 1986). Tasks that were previously done solely can now be done all at once through the help of such commodities as refrigerators and washing machines that has helped a housewife to do different chores at the same time. Students can now own scanners, camera and iPads that they can use to conduct activities in a smooth manner. Hensel & Dubinsky (1986,p.63-67) note that some of these products got resistance at first; but due to intensive marketing and sales efforts, the society eventually accepted them for use in public space. Secondly, these proponents argue that marketing is a powerful force within the society especially in improving the underlying products and services. It is noted that these products and services usually draw high degree of competition as a result of effective marketing strategy like advertising (Ambler, Broadbent & Feldwick, 2009). As a result of this competition, marketers are compelled to fight-off substitutes by way of engaging in product differentiation while at the same time improving on their offerings. A given company’s marketers are always pushed to come up with new strategies to make product offerings unique and better in order to increases chances of them being preferred in the marketplace (Nairn, & Fine, 2008). In essence, the pressure that emanates from competition through product differentiation strategies results to intensive improvements of products and service offerings. Consequently, it is vehemently agreed that marketing helps to develop and sustain a wide array of job placements that is offered to the society as a whole. Marketing does not only focus on providing sales and marketing-related jobs but also all other job openings that are based on the creation of both products and services. In the event that the marketers successfully push the sale of both goods and services; through such legit ways as promotional marketing, they in turn help sustain employment base. The intensiveness of activities related to marketing of both goods and services plays a significant part in the creation of a rather dynamic and growing overall economy for which a society thrives. In addition to this, marketing is argued to be a major source of improvement for most companies. On the contrary, the opponents of marketing as an idea related to bringing about improvements in companies argue that is a major source of evil especially in regards to aspects related to advertising. Numerous research relating to advertising as a marketing strategy indicate that it increases the overall society consumption through redistribution; promotes and also normalises both attitudes values; many of which are deemed to be socially damaging like gambling; and, also it engages in the manipulation of people on a distinctive subconscious degree for both children and adults at large (Sutherland, 2010). The opponents argue that advertising is merely an activity that is focused on impacting redistribution of consumption. It is based on increasing accumulative material consumption hence deemed to be just a propeller of the least sustainable components of a given economy that is presently utilising up resources thereby destroying ecosystems and allowing environmental pollution at an alarming rate (Fox, 1984). Such patters, in turn, results to being a threatening aspect to the overall global poverty trends while still posing grave issues for a just and equitable environment. In fact, from a macro-economic perspective, advertising can be seen as a factor promoting increased consumption through encouraging a shift of household income from noble decisions of savings and investments towards spending and intensive borrowing- with most of the people being compelled to utilise their existing earnings or even take loans to purchase latest consumer products and services as opposed to directing this money into proper use. Research indicates that advertisings strategies related to promotion of casinos have resulted to lower productivity levels as well as higher poverty trends within the society. Consequently, opponents of the advertising as a marketing component postulate that it is aimed at only manipulating masses; as it focuses on shaping the society in its own perspective and image (Jung & Seldon, 1995). Casino posters may not be perceived in most of the public space but through the aspect of advertising, it has been proliferated. It is noted that enormous amounts of advertising money is spent in ways that appeal to extrinsic values, which are values that are attributed to a lower motivation to address possible social and environmental issues at hand (Jung & Seldon, 1995). For instance, engaging and winning gambling-related activities might make people envious about one’s lifestyle but this does necessarily result to improvements in one’s quality of life. In my opinion, I believe that although marketing is somehow evil; it is a necessary evil that the society cannot live without. Taking a closer look at its impacts to the society in comparison its benefits ascertains that it will likely result to more positive attributes like job creation; production of new and quality-driven products; and, also ensure that companies make profits overtime. It is therefore a component that although is focused on damaging social and environmental values; it still plays a significant role in bringing about elements that focus on improving society’s improvements altogether. Reflective Statement In conducting my research, I made sure to only focus on material sources that have been peer-reviewed in order to ascertain their authenticity as well as reliability in providing relevant information in relation the issue at hand. In fact, to make sure that I was not tempted into using information from unverified sources like Wikipedia and blogs; I made sure to focus on legit library databases like Google Scholar and EBSCOhost, which are platforms that only publish reliable sources. While conducting this exercise, I learnt that it was somehow difficult and a challenge to come up with materials sources that provided relevant information relating to the topic at hand and thus, there were numerous temptations to just use blogs but still information they provided lacked clarity and resourcefulness. However, I learnt that coming up with clear keywords relating to the topic resulted to access to pure academic sources that ranged from journal articles to peer reviewed periodicals that provided both opposing and proposing views on the issue. In fact, I learnt that I was very patient enough especially with the process of analysing resource materials that should be used in the debate. Thus, I have gathered enough research skills that I will use in conducting extensive research in the future. References List Ambler, T, Broadbent, S & Feldwick, P. 2009. ‘Does advertising affect market size? Some evidence from the United Kingdom’, International Journal of Advertising, 17, p. 267–300. Bardi, A & Goodwin, R. 2011. ‘The dual route to value change: individual processes and cultural moderators’, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 42, p. 271–287. Fox, S. 1984.The Mirror Makers: A history of American advertising and its creators, University of Illinois Press: Chicago. Hensel, P, & Dubinsky, A 1986, 'Ethical Dilemmas in Marketing: A Rationale', Journal of Business Ethics, 5, 1, pp. 63-67 Jung, C & Seldon, B, J. 1995. ‘The macroeconomic relationship between advertising and consumption’, Southern Economic Journal, 61, p. 577–587. Nairn, A & Fine, C. 2008. ‘Who’s messing with my mind? The implications of dual-process models for the ethics of advertising to children’, International Journal of Advertising, 27, pp. 447–470 Sutherland, R. 2010 ‘We can’t run away from the ethical debates in marketing’, Market Leader, Q1, p.59 Read More