Social Marketing in the Age of Direct Benefit and Upstream Marketing - Assignment Example

1. Move Upstream and why do social marketers do this? Nowadays one of the key additions to social marketing is the concept of moving upstream. According to this mode, instead of focusing on the target individuals or target groups, social marketers are going ‘upstream’ and are focusing on the various or ‘upper’ environmental, political and social variables, who or which could indirectly or directly influence the target individuals or groups decisions. So, moving upstream is focusing, influencing and manipulating the environmental variables for the benefit of the target group as well as the social marketer. Upstream marketing can be defined as manipulating the environmental variables, market conditions and market needs by targeting the level above the consumer, rather than consumer directly. (Dan). The social marketers are going upstream mainly to make their social marketing effective and importantly to reach their formulated social message to the target group. Social marketing’s end result is maximum social change towards their set target. However, this social change cannot happen until social norms change and the behavior is seen as acceptable or desirable by a critical mass of people. (acmasocialmarketing.com). To influence maximum people, it is will not be enough to focus and direct the efforts at the individual level, and instead it will be important to focus on influential decision makers like government policy makers, who are ‘surrounding’ those individuals and could influence their decision. For example, if a social marketer wants to spread an anti-smoking message among the men in a small town, instead of focusing on the men, they can go upstream and direct their efforts on the town’s administration authorities. Also, with consumers becoming more resistant to the messages of social marketers, interest is growing regarding the upstream approach. (Dan). 2. Strategic planning, elements of a marketing plan for social marketing As part of the strategic planning process, elements of marketing plan like objectives, products or services offered, target audiences, competitors and implementation plan will be discussed as part of social marketing, with the focus mainly on recycling of water in hotels. The future of hotels and industries lies in a sustainable plan which involves green ideas. So, the objective of this campaign is to spread the awareness and benefits of water recycling to the hotel industry including the social benefits, so they can adopt this recycling method. Next, the services offered includes setting up of a infrastructure for recycling the water from showers, sinks or laundry, known as grey water through a three-pronged treatment plan. The treated water may be stored and used safely for agricultural watering or spraying, pesticide or herbicide dilution, flushing systems, livestock cleaning purposes and fire control systems. As far as the target audiences are concerned, they can be any hotel, which are interested in going for sustainable and greener options regarding water usage. In recent times, most hotel owners have realized the importance of having green buildings with water recycling as the prominent part. With many businesses going the green way, a lot of startups have sprung up providing a ‘green makeover’, so there is significant competition. The water treatment system consists of three phases, extracting different kinds of impurities. The first phase removes suspended oil, fat and other solid impurities. In the second phase, the effluent flows through a bioreactor, where the water is recycled which ensures efficient treatment by keeping the biomass active. The third phase consists of special polish fiber, which combines with filtration while the biological process is concurrently active on the filters media surface. (yamit-f.com). 3. Research guide decision making, which questions to ask and what methodologies will provide the best insights Decisions, which are made as part of social marketing, need to be effective, foolproof, without any biases. As various external variables are involved, the decision making process has to consider all these variables and for that effective research has to be carried out. “…decision making typically occurs in changing, dynamic, social contexts, and that researchers interested in decision making in a social context therefore will benefit by considering the relation between creativity and decision making” (Allwood and Selart, 2001). Researches conducted by the researchers about the target segment, their responses, market segmentation, their affiliations, etc, will guide the decision making process to its logical conclusion. Research will be conducted by the in-house employees (in-house social marketers) or will be given to outside research conducting agency. However, in most cases, research will be done in-house with the management structuring the researchers into different teams. That is, the leader or manager or supervisor will establish specific researcher cells within the department to do the ground research and give their inputs for the decision making processes. Those cells by collecting and congregating all the inputs, can use it in the decision making process. While collecting the inputs, care should be taken to avoid discrimination on any irrelevant aspects and all the research teams should be given importance. Once the research portion is completed and data is analyzed according to the needs of a particular campaign, decisions can be taken, “This capability involves an organization having the ability to find the research evidence it needs, judge its reliability, quality, relevance, and applicability, adapt it into a useable format, and apply it” (chsrf.ca). During the research as part of decision making process, apt formulation of questions is the key. Because only if apt, relevant and even interesting questions are asked, there will be apt and useful answers, which only can be used for effective data analysis and the eventual decisions. So, in a campaign, researchers will want to know the answers for the questions, which are relevant to the target segment and importantly the main crux of the social marketing campaign. The main answers have to be from the personal experience of the respondent, and for that, questions has to ‘seduce’ them instead of forcing them to reveal. “Questions about unfairness in the social marketing context include: How much disclosure is sufficient (e.g., advertising of a contraceptive that has side effects)?” (Andreasen 2001). Also, answers have to be given by the respondents without compromising their position or job, and so questions have to be formulated on those lines. So, on the whole, answers have to be in-depth, personal and not compromising, with apt questions. The above mentioned methodology of involving all the research teams or cells, and accumulating their inputs during the decision making process will be apt and effective. Because it will be bring more motivation to the researchers and will make exhibit high productivity as part of the overall marketing campaign. The Cooper’s model specifies that when the workers keep on participating in all the important decision making process, they will start to understand all the intricacies of organization functioning. So, if this methodology is utilized including decision making process, they could provide valuable inputs, and importantly will amplify their motivation and work even harder to actualize the given inputs. CRM What guides your search for the most appropriate partner? What benefits can you present to potential partners as a result of their support?( Number of page 2). Thus, from time immemorial, the role of marketing is crucial because it can only attack the prospective customers’ eyes, ears and thereby mind, entice them and bring them into the store or make them buy the products or utilize the services. That is, the product or the services offered by the organization had to be made enticing for the customers to buy it or use it. To entice the customers, there should optimal marketing campaign through various mediums. Although, marketing campaigns will always results in good results for the organization, nowadays the ‘way’ organizations travel to come up with those campaigns and importantly the nature of those campaigns have come under close scrutiny of various sections of the population. That is, nowadays in this media scrutinized world, the prospective customers expect certain ethical commitments from the organizations. Thus, there are extra compulsion on the organizations to come up with marketing campaigns which take an ethical route as well as incorporate Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). In the Past decade several Private companies have been accused of being unethical and not meeting the standards. This has resulted in a lot of debating the very nature of Private companies, their intentions per say are clear i.e. to earn Profits and leave the rest to fate. The Private companies simply try to Pass on the buck to others in the chain and feel completely unbothered about the consequences of it. how private companies exploit all sources to the hilt, unmindful of its impact on the society in general and the local people in particular. As part of ethics in the external environment or along with ethics, organizations have to incorporate Corporate Social Responsibility as part of their functioning. Through this strategy, organization will show interest and take care of certain crucial social issues, coming up with constructive strategies and solution for the welfare of the society and its people. This positive action of the organization will fulfill their CSR and importantly will optimize its image among the people including its prospective customers In cause-related marketing (CRM), a company agrees to donate money to a charity each time a consumer engages in a revenue-producing transaction with the firm. Since the company benefits first before any obligation to donate is accrued, consumers might perceive this practice to be less altruistic than an unconditional donation to a cause. If so, CRM could backfire, injuring corporate image. This study investigated the effects of type of donation (conditional or not conditional upon corporate revenue) and reputation of the firm making the donation (firms described as scrupulous, average, or irresponsible in the discharge of their social responsibility) on consumer regard for the firm; perceived mercenary intent of the firm; and whether the social performance of the company is consistent with "good" management. Consumer responses were predicted based on the contrast effect and attribution theory. Results suggest that irresponsible firms increased their favor with consumers by pursuing either type of donation. The average firm enhanced its image by pursuing an unconditional donation, but a conditional donation did not damage firm image. Perception of the scrupulous firm was little changed after unconditional donation, but a scrupulous firm suffered a loss of favor by pursuing CRM. It is concluded that the average firm does not risk a loss of public goodwill when using CRM When an individual consumer makes a donation to a charity, the exchange equation is relatively simple: The consumer donates money, possessions, or his or her labor, and receives gratitude (perhaps implied) from the charity as well as a self-congratulatory pat on the back. Corporations also make donations to charities, but the exchange equation is more complicated. For example, in the case of cause-related marketing (CRM), there are three actors instead of two. The corporation (actor 1) announces that it will donate some specified amount of money to a charitable cause (actor 2) each time a consumer (actor 3) engages in a revenue-producing transaction with the company. The linkage between the consumer and the charity is indirect in CRM, which contrasts with the direct linkage when only two actors are involved. With a direct linkage and only two actors, the donation is likely to be interpreted as altruism. In CRM, however, the company benefits first before any obligation to donate is accrued, and this could be interpreted as self-interest rather than altruism. An important question is whether consumers will perceive CRM as self-interest and exploitation of the charity rather than altruism. If so, this type of promotion could backfire and result in a loss of goodwill toward the company. This line of thought leads to an important question. Do consumers perceive a difference between two possible types of corporate donation (funds generated through CRM versus the donation of a fixed sum of cash that is not conditional upon revenue obtained by the firm)? Furthermore, would the reputation of the firm for social responsibility (a firm described as scrupulous in its social responsibilities versus an average firm versus an irresponsible firm) make a difference in consumer perception of either type of donation? The answers have managerial relevance. CRM may be more advantageous for the company than the alternative. If consumers perceive little difference between the two types of donations, firms will likely prefer the one that benefits them the most. If reputation of the firm moderates consumer perception of the donation, managers will want to know this as well. 5. Comparison of commercial and social marketers regarding ethics Although, commercial marketers and social marketers adopt or have different purposes, processes and campaigns, when the factor of ethics is focused, there are some similarities as well as differences between the two. Social marketers can face many of the same ethical issues as commercial marketers, when they apply the commercial marketing technology. That is, when the social marketers follow commercial marketing aspects like segmentation of the target audience, marketing mix elements, etc as part of their strategic planning, then potentially they may face many of the same ethical issues as commercial marketers. The ethical issues the social marketing could face includes deceptive advertising campaign (although a social message for the wellbeing of the society needs to be delivered), doubts regarding the product safety, even corruption, etc. When one focuses on the ethical differences, there is clean distinction particularly the target segment, as social marketing focuses on welfare of individuals and society, while commercial marketing focuses on providing superior customer value. In addition, there may be values conflicts among program partners or stakeholders in the case of social marketers, and less in the case of commercial marketers. For example, there could be conflicts when a program involves social marketers from developed countries operating with agencies in developing countries. (Andreasen 2001). Likewise, there are some more ethical themes, which are specifically visible among social marketers. Firstly, there should not be ‘internal’ conflicts as well, in the minds of the social marketers like whether they serve their own self-interest or improve the society’s welfare. Also, ethical concern of the social marketers can have a humanizing effect, which impacts or enhances their dealings with the customers References acmasocialmarketing.com, Social Marketing 101, viewed on November 2, 2010 http://www.acmasocialmarketing.com/images/Social-Marketing-101-Arthritis- Group.ppt. Allwood, C M and Selart, M. 2001, Decision Making: Social and Creative Dimensions. Springer. Andreasen, AR 2001, Ethics in social marketing, Georgetown University Press chsrf.ca, Applying research in decision-making, Canadian Health Services Research Foundation, viewed on November 2, 2010 http://www.chsrf.ca/keys/use_applying_e.php Dan, S, Social Marketing in the Age of Direct Benefit and Upstream Marketing, viewed on November 2, 2010 http://www.scribd.com/doc/247318/Social-Marketing-in-the-Age-of-Direct-Benefit- and-Upstream-Marketing yamit-f.com, Wastewater Bio-Treatment Systems, viewed on November 2, 2010 http://www.yamit-f.com/Wastewater-bio-treatment-systems.asp Read More