Guilt Emotion in Marketing - Coursework Example

GUILT EMOTION IN MARKETING

Introduction

Marketing entails all processes that seek to create, communicate, deliver, and exchange an offering that comes with value for customers (Shen & Morris, 2016). Once the customers are getting the value being offered, they also pay a price for this. Marketing is therefore a central part of almost every business and organization, whether it is a for-profit one or non-profit one. The reason for this assertion is that the price that customers or consumers pay is not always in monetary form. In some cases, they pay the price of supporting a social course for change (Botha & Reyneke, 2013). Randle et al. (2016) asserted that because of the exchanges that take place between the marketer and the recipient or consumer, emotions play a central role in marketing. This is because the processes of creating, communication, delivery and exchange, which the marketer seeks to offer to the consumer can only be achieved if the emotions and senses of the consumer are captured to what is being offered. This also shows that there are several forms of emotions that come to play during marketing. They include guilt, humour, fear, and joy (Antonetti & Baines, 2017). In this paper, the impact of guilt as an emotion on marketing is explored. It uses specific case studies as well as other works of literature in this area of study.

How elements of fear and sadness make guilt emotion marketing effective

Several existing studies have established specific elements of guilt, which makes it an important and effective emotion in marketing. Kemp, Bui and Chapa (2012) noted that an effective marketing is one that results in sale or acceptance of whatever is being offered. By this, the elements of guilt being discussed in this section throws light on how guilt emotion can ensure that consumers or the public accept whatever is being marketed to them. The first element about guilt that makes it an effective marketing tool is that it has the ability to promote both sadness and fear. Chang (2014) found that when people have guilt about a situation, they are likely to develop fear or sadness for that particular situation. Based on the reaction of fear or sadness that they develop, their senses and emotions become activated to act in ways that eliminate whatever their fear or source of sadness is. While agreeing to this point, Antonetti and Baines (2015) emphasised that using the emotion of guilt to create the reaction of fear and sadness is very common when marketers make consumers feel that they have a responsibility to stop a bad situation from happening, developing or continuing. But in order for them to fulfil the said responsibility, they have to either make a donation or purchase something.

The fact that guilt emotion creates the reaction of fear and sadness and makes people make purchases or donations to stop a bad situation, it is commonly applied in promoting charity donations. A typical example of this seen in the works of charity organisations that seek donations to foster homes or cater for sick children. In their line of promotions, these organisations create guilt in the minds of the public by making them appreciate that the survival and welfare of the vulnerable children depend on them. In some cases, they use images of some of these vulnerable children, which can be described as emotional and captivating when running their advertisements. The image below is part of the online poster of ADRA, which seeks donations to help East Africa children, women and men are starving due to starvation. Indeed if the organisation seeking the donation merely ask people to donate money to the children without trying to capture their emotions through guilt, there are chances that people will not have a true sense of urgency for the donation being sought (Antonetti & Baines, 2017). As seen in the image below, a person who sees this image is likely to develop the reaction of sadness for the children or fear about the future of the children if they fail to donate.

Donation Poster by ADRA

Source: ADRA (2017)

The Macmillan Cancer Case Study is another example that tells the story of how the element of fear and sadness linked with guilt emotion can make marketing effective. A critical evaluation of the marketing strategy of the Macmillan Cancer Support group shows that greater part of the message they presented to the public focused on the seriousness of cancer as a disease, the glooming forecast of how many people will die from the disease, and the need for cancer patients not to be left alone in dealing with the disease (Macmillan Cancer Support, 2015). For example the group gave statistics that by the year 2030, as many as 4 million people will be living with cancer. Certainly when a person is presented with such statistics, coupled with the information that funding for cancer awareness is low, it creates a sense of guilt as the person asks him or herself, what he or she has done to help in making the situation better. As discussed already, once this guilt emotion is created, it forms the reaction of fear. For example one can ask whether he or she could be part of the 4 million people who will be living with cancer by 2030. This thought alone can make people respond by donating to help the cause of creating awareness about cancer and supporting cancer patients (Shen & Morris, 2016).

How uncomfortable feeling associated with guilt emotions makes marketing effective

The second major element about guilt that makes it an effective marketing strategy is that it creates uncomfortable reactions in people. Garg et al. (2017) explained that there is a psychological component of guilt, that makes people feel highly uncomfortable when they feel guilty about a situation. Once there is this feeling of discomfort, the next wish is for the person with the guilt to find a situation that ends it. Chang (2014) confirmed that this psychological situation has been extensively used by marketers and other campaigners, who wish to cause a social change among people. There are a number of real world scenarios that can be given to exemplify how the fact that people feel uncomfortable make them respond to social campaigns. One such popular example is the Department of Transport speed campaign, where it used very uncomfortable feeling among drivers to make them respond positively to over speeding. This feeling was generated by making using TV adverts that created the sense that drivers could be facing the guilt of killing another person through over speeding (Philips & Hodge, 2009). Indeed the campaign recorded positive reactions of 78% campaign recognition. There were also nearly half of the target group admitting to the fact that the discomfort they felt about the guilt of death made them rethink of changing their action towards speeding.

Some indications have been given in the body of literature to explain why ordinary social campaigns will not be effective until guilt emotion is introduced. Randle et al. (2016) posited that until people are introduced to guilt emotion, they see calls for certain changes as advocacies that do not go in their interest but in the interest of the campaigners. Using the example of climate change, Estes, Brotto and Busacca (2017) stressed that there are chances that companies who are asked to cut down on their carbon emission will see such calls as something that go against their economic interest but favour the social agenda of the campaigners. However, when guilt emotion is introduced by bringing such companies to the reality of the harm that global warming is causing the environment currently, the perception of the companies is likely to change, so that they see themselves also as beneficiaries in the campaign. Consequently, such as person who is introduced to guilt emotion about global warming would go through a number phases, including a change from feeling uncomfortable to one of feeling responsible for change. Because marketing is not only about the purchase of products and services but accepting other offers with value, when a social campaign about global which uses guilt emotion cause companies to feel responsible about carbon emission, it is an evidence of the effect of guilt emotion on marketing (WARC, 2010).

Conclusion

In the discussions above, a strong case has been made about the impact of guilt emotion on marketing. Marketing has been noted to go beyond the selling of products and services. It includes any offer with social value such as charity donations and environmental responsibility. There are two main elements of guilt emotion that make it trigger positive impacts in people who are presented with it. These are the reaction of fear and sadness, and reaction of uncomfortable feeling. The reaction of fear and sadness that comes with guilt emotion has mostly been linked with charity donations and other humanitarian campaigns, which require people to give part of what they have to others. In such situations, no specific or tangible value based offerings are made to the recipient, for which they donate to. However, they see the fact that their donation will help eliminate their fear and sadness as a good reason to give. Similarly, feeling of discomfort is also associated to social behaviour and changes. With this also, the offering made to the people involved is the elimination of feeling uncomfortable.

Reflection

Accessing credible sources is very important to attaining a credible essay or research paper. This is because most of the information used from outside sources go a long way to form part of the results of the study produced. In my case, I performed a systematic search, similar to what is used in a typical secondary research. That is, I first formed themes around which I wanted to write the essay. The themes were formed based on the topic, which was how guilt emotion makes marketing effective. Given this topic, there were two areas about guilt emotion that I wanted to study. These are reactions of sadness and fear, and reactions of uncomfortable feeling. After I formed the theme, I found two electronic databases on the internet, noted for their credibility and authenticity in conducting research works in the areas of marketing and psychology. The selected databases were Google Scholar and Mintel. Once these databases were found, I formed key words from the themes, which were clued into the databases. My goal was to access about 15 academic papers and market reports on the subject. The initial search produced over 200 sources. To reduce the sources, I introduced an exclusion and inclusion criteria. For example only sources that were published in the last 10 years were considered. Where applicable, sources of UK origin or background were given prominence. Also, all sources that were not originally published in English language were excluded. With this criteria, the number of articles were reduced to about 75. With these 75, a skimming and scanning process was conducted by thoroughly reading through the contents of each of them to select those that related best to the study. One consideration that was made to access credible and reliable sources was to give premium to authors whose works had been referenced or cited most. This was the most ideal way to ensure credibility and reliability since I was not in a position to personally test the results presented in those studies.