Postmodernism, marketing and the media - Essay Example

Introduction The starting point to such a diverse and profound query as the one put to me here is how Rossiter( 2001) in his "Marketing Knowledge Project" has aimed to define the forms of marketing knowledge and its content and then gone on to distinguish the four types of marketing knowledge: marketing concepts, structural frameworks, strategic principles in the context empirical facts, empirical generalizations, laws and law-like relationships, and theories. For Rossiter (2001) then the post marketing era cannot be explained merely by the theories of buyer behaviour alone and in this context the concept of marketing knowledge has a lot to do with Ethics and Technology and they relate to marketing in the postmodern world. (Rossiter, 2001: 12).Thus for Rossiter marketing knowledge is part of business strategy "...enacted strategies are much more complex than can ever be stated, and managers often self-servingly and inaccurately recall the strategy they used as recently as two years ago, even when a fairly basic description of strategic alternatives is used" Post modernism , marketing and the media The business academia has spoken of marketing as the ultimate reflection of post modernism in social terms and a blend of craft and commerce which keeps changing each day due to technological and social perspectives and constantly changing the means and modes of consumption the society. According to Pierre Bourdieu quoted in Cronin A (2004: pp. 349-369 ) "This economy demands a social world which judges people by their capacity for consumption, their "standard of living", their life-style, as much as by their capacity for production.It finds ardent spokesmen in the vendors of symbolic goods and services, the directors and the executives of firms in tourism and journalism, publishing and the cinema, fashion and advertising, decoration and property development. Through their slyly imperative advice and the example of their consciously "model" life-style, the new taste-makers propose a morality which boils down to the art of consuming, spending and enjoying." Thus given the broad plane upon which this question is based a detailed answer to this question would be like trying to lock up the entire ocean in one match box but this is what we as marketers do. We try to lock up happiness in a matchbox and will gladly market that given the chance. This is a big bad world of marketing where the entire marketing profession stands accused of crossing ethical boundaries, enticing children and adults alike and using to technology to the point of abuse. Welcome to the post-modern marketing era! In this course we were able to discuss the more profound issues behind the post modern marketing era and its influence on modern media and advertising. Visionaries like C. Wright Mills were looking ahead when they described the post-modern period as one where there would be a growth of tertiary sector and the services industry would boom in the era of multi nationals and a rise in capitalism. However the booming free market would be unable to boast of free speech and democratic values in the guise of political and social turmoil. For Doherty (1991) post modernism as phenomena feared human progress and its realities. Other writers have said that this era is a time of uncertainty and doubt (Stacey 1990) and a melting pot of pluralism, democracy and information and consumerism. (Stacey 1990) The marketers have realised that this age has come with its packages of closeness and aids to overcome the physical barriers/social barriers through the media and information technology. Shorter (1975) has identified this with "anonymous intimacy" as people scramble to find emotional depth due to family ties becoming more distant through TV talk and advice shows and texting and chatting. Technology has blurred the divide between home and work as the internet brings home the world.So are we "what we know" . This is an age of post-modern relativism and pluralism which has replaced the vials of the generally accepted universal principles. More importantly critics argue whether Post-modern media actually represents a deteriorated renaissance. (Anderson 1990)..However proponents of pluralism and a strong influence of post modernism insist that the modern media is a bulwark of the modern liberal man with his right of freedom of speech.(Anderson 1990). The post-modern media has on the one hand manifested itself as a large source of information but information alone cannot replace critical reflection, and philosophy and culture which should be an important part of the modern information world.Therefore what we are looking at is a critical, ethical and cultural reflection manifesting itself with in the post-modern media world and we should be rethinking the modern approach to the media. Ethics: Fair-trade ,marketing and advertising I will seek to explain the challenge posed by ethics in the sense of two controversial issues in the marketing world. The first one is advertising to little children and the other one pertains to Fair trade. The post modern ethical consumer and fair trade The Fair trade concept incorporates environmental as well as social issues. Littrell and Dickson (1999) have defined fair trade as a "Continuum of business practices, from minimum to maximum fair-trade practices. Apart from paying fair wages in a local context and providing a safe and clean workplace (mainstream business), they defined maximum fair-trade practices as also encompassing the development of sustainable businesses, empowerment of artisans, fostering well-being, establishing political and social justice, and developing equitable trade." This higher price to the consumer is warranted by the higher wages that the producer will receive for their products and by the fair-trade control mechanisms in the trade channel ( Littrell and Dickson 1999). In April 2000, after a long campaign by the human rights organization Global Exchange, Starbucks decided to carry fair-trade coffee in its 2,300 stores (Straus 2000).Thus FT illustrates a specific type of ethical consumer behaviour and means buying items for their positive quality of supporting people in faraway developing countries. Fair trade and the question of ethics and postmodernism It has been seen by exercising choice and selecting Fair Trade products the literature is united that we as consumers not only contribute to social justice but, for themselves, can forge a more meaningful relationship with the world. (Ulrich, Peter and Charles Sarasin. 1995.) Thus this will be globalization through Fair Trade and may be of immense benefits to the consumer and producers alike.In this evaluation it is worth exploring the ethical considerations of selling a product with the "Ethical" brand like "Fair Trade".The link between ethics and social responsibility is pivotal to a company's long term growth .From a business point of view the business academia is united as to the fact that " Good ethics is often good business". However it would be useful to argue at this point that not all marketing/business practices are unethical as the media has fervently portrayed for many decades.But this leads to another query i.e. how fair is the business game in the arena of Advertising.During a perusal of the literature it was possible for us to see that the marketplace is not a level playing field should the producers actually be penalised for business tactics to increase sales. More importantly the post modern marketing world has see a revival of the conceptions of Corporate Social Responsibility. There is a newfound trend in marketing and business ethics where large corporations publicize their business ethics programs on the Internet. Take the example of Shell Oil, where, after a number of environmental and public relations problems, decided to commit to recyclable and environment friendly energy and publicly promotes human rights worldwide. More importantly literature has spoken out against marketing ethics becoming marketing ploys themselves. Today many organisations are anxious to portray themselves as seeking high moral ground, something they call "ethical business". Traditionally commerce has been perceived as crass and cut throat competition driven and trampling on employee rights. It seems that the media has played a mixed role in this area. Firstly they have created " cultural guilt" around vehicle use and fuel pollution and created environmental awareness yet Oil companies speak little of environmental issues and more on engine fuel efficiency in their adverts.The recent scandal created by the Shell Company where there was the Brent Spar oil spill and the media attention it received is one example. It seems that these companies are less afraid of treading on marketing/business ethics and more afraid of prosecution and law suits. The newfound trend of marketing "the marketing ethics" themselves leads to the query whether business concerns have actually been successful in selling ethical products and whether they have profited from these practices. Modern Banks have joined the Ethics Band wagon by seeking to differentiate the bank, and choose to emphasize its social origins and the issues which would appeal to its traditional market, namely the oppressed minorities like the Scottish Widows Fund in England endorsed by Lloyds TSB Bank.(See Stainer 1995). Another example is the popular coffee house chain of caf's namely Starbucks. The chain became successful for its contribution to good causes for being a top donor to the international aid agency, CARE. (See Stainer 1995).In their article "Is it ethical to compete on ethics"Stainer A, Stainer L (1995)have taken the view that competition should actually be encouraged by ethicists and an overdose of ethics ,(the Going Green trend ) is not helpful in the promotion of good business. Business rivalry is essential therefore for promotion of enterprise and this competition is " indispensable to free enterprise thinking."A similar view is taken by(Sirgy and Lee 1996). " societal marketing concept addresses delivering satisfaction in a way that preserves or enhances consumer wellbeing, the link between consumer satisfaction and consumer wellbeing is not clear in societal marketing. Short-term satisfaction may not enhance consumer wellbeing." Advertising to little children Technology and Ethics As marketers our minds will even lead us to market the whole concept of Ethics if it means we will be able to sell more products (Clay 2000 ,Stainer and Stainer 1995). It is obvious from modern industry practices that modern Business ethics have become a victim of the marketing ploys and as large corporations find themselves struggling to promote positive images of themselves (Clay 2000 ,Stainer and Stainer 1995). For example Body Shop and Star Bucks trade on the basis of using fair trade products. This has also been labeled rhetorically known as "Greenwashing" by companies to conceal their unethical practices. (Clay 2000,Stainer and Stainer 1995). In this age of high consumerism marketers and advertisers will inevitably struggle to have their product viewed and purchased by using increasingly innovative methods.(Clay 2000). Also inevitable is that the children will notice this advertising like the adults. Children tend to respond to visual stimulation (Bishop 1992). The modern parent feels guilty because of not having enough time to spend with the kids and easily gives in the pestering by the child who insists on a certain. So the parents are likely to give in to the child for the sake of feeling that their children are well provided for and the manufacturers make a resultant clean sweep of profits and market shares with their highly advertised branded products. (Beder 1998) Strangely enough academics have not been able to reach to a convincing definition of ethics themselves.For example Nisberg (1988:43) has defined business ethics as "a set of principles that guides business practices to reflect a concern for society as a whole while pursuing profits" whilst Hackley (2005) has defined ethics as a system of moral principles and rules of conduct which develop in a society over a certain period of time. The apparent difficulty of placing "marketing" and "ethics" on a similar plane therefore has often led many academics to retort that the term is an "oxymoron" with in itself and consider it as "intrinsically unethical" or at the least morally neutral. (Hackley 2005). One of the most important areas of marketing ethics remains the debate regarding what makes ethical or unethical advertising to children. Strong proponents of Advertising argue passionately that it is a bulwark of free competitive enterprise (Noggle, 1997). However many academics have expressed concern over the controversy caused by the ethical issues arising from the new found creativity in advertising well aided by technology and psychological strategies (Brenan, 2001). Furthermore academics like Hyman (2004) tend to insist that advertising to children is morally wrong.So is it true as Hyman (2004) suggests that if adults cannot resist these slick emotional messages, what hope do children have The answer to this question is simple. Parents of young children can play an important role to protect their kids from invasive marketing and in educating them about advertising from an early age. However this does not mean that the intentionally targeted Ad-campaigns for small children can be declared ethical at all and thus this becomes yet another post modern challenge to the modern marketer. Role of technology and ethics in the context of the threat posed to marketing through Copyright infringement The digital age seems to have compromised the concept of copyright material and has had negative outcomes for the publishing, music and the computer industries. An important example of this is the peer-to-peer file sharing system of copyrighted music. The Napster and Grokster cases are a good illustration of the legal response of the industries .The copyright industries themselves have responded with new business strategies by providing legal download services. The internet has been famously defined as a network of networks, and the denser these networks become; the more complicated it becomes to prevent the bane of copyright infringement and other intellectual property violations from occurring. (Cooper, J. and D. M. Harrison 2001).Even though the courts have been willing to intervene where there has been an infringement of copyright, the practical difficulties of managing copyright violations arise whenever the "sheer scale" and "speed" of the internet causes high speed reproduction of the material to be achieved without actually being detected. The advent of the photocopier, followed subsequently by, home audio recording, video recording, and finally the Personal Computer (PC) allowed digitised and rapid copying. The modern Copyright Infringer does not need a large factory of copying machines to create illegal copies of, copyrighted material. All in all the challenge for copyright holders has never been greater.An example of the technological challenges faced by the post modern marketer manifest themselves in the host of legal, educational, public relations and technological strategies to keep its profit base from collapsing(Cooper, J. and D. M. Harrison 2001).. Modern age DVD's are encoded to try and prevent copying even though this mechanism has already been circumvented. Software giants like Real Networks, are promoting the use of copyright music over the internet. Other challenges consist of procedural difficulties. That is, in cross border infringements it becomes very hard to gain control over an infringer who resides in or takes refuge in a jurisdiction where that is not an offence. (Cooper, J. and D. M. Harrison 2001). ______________________________________________ References Anderson, W.T. 1990. Reality Isn't What it Used to Be. San Francisco: Harper and Row. Doherty, W.J. 1991. "Family Therapy Goes Postmodern." Networker, September/ October. Mills, C.W. 1959. The Sociological Imagination. New York: Grove Press. O'Hara, M., and W.T. Anderson. 1991. "Welcome to the Postmodern World." Networker, September/October. Shorter, E. 1975. The Making of the Modern Family. New York: Basic Books. 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'Ethics in advertising': review, analysis and suggestions Journal of Public Policy and Marketing Vol. 17 No.2, pp.316-9. Noggle, E.(1997). The moral status of children: Children's right, parents and family Justice: Social theory and practice 23: 1-26 of children: Children's right, parents and family justice: Social theory and practice 23: 1-26 Rossiter (2001) What is Marketing Knowledge Marketing Theory 1,1 2001 Read More