The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty - Pearson

Chapter 2 Sustainable marketing: marketing ethics and social responsibilityHoliday timeshare is one area. There are many reputable companies in this sector, such asSunterra, that offer good-value products but still use high-pressure selling to achieveclosure. The European Commission estimates holiday property rip-offs cost Europeanconsumers over €7bn a year and is extending the law protecting timeshare owners. The industryalso wants political help in policing the sector. Sandy Grey, of the Timeshare Consumers’Association, says ‘Nobody wants to buy because the reputation of the industry is so bad.’ 7As these examples show, high-pressure selling abounds when selling high-cost services tovulnerable people. It also damages the prospects for legitimate marketers. Fortunately, mostselling involves building long-term relationships with valued customers. High-pressure or deceptiveselling can do serious damage to such relationships. For example, imagine a Unilever accountmanager trying to pressure a Tesco buyer, or an IBM salesperson trying to browbeat a Siemensinformation technology manager. It simply would not work.Shoddy, harmful or unsafe productsAnother criticism concerns poor product quality or function. One complaint is that, too often,products are not made well and services are not performed well. A second complaint is thatmany products deliver little benefit, or that they might even be harmful. For example, manycritics have pointed out the dangers of today’s fat-laden fast-food. McDonald’s recently faced aclass-action lawsuit charging that its fast food meals have contributed to the obesity epidemic.Who’s to blame for the nation’s obesity problem? And what should responsible food companiesdo about it? As with most social responsibility issues, there are no easy answers. McDonald’shas worked to improve its fare and make its menu and its customers healthier. However, otherfast feeders seem to be going the other way. Burger King launched its Enormous Omelet breakfastsandwich, packing an unapologetic 47 grams of fat. Are these companies being sociallyirresponsible? Or are they simply serving customers choices they want? 8Once we laughed at the US as being the fast food nation. Now Europe is catching up. ‘Thelast three decades have seen the levels of overweight and obesity in the EU population risedramatically, particularly among children, where the estimated prevalence of overweight was30 per cent’, says Markos Kyprianou, the European Union health commissioner. He explainedthat in most EU countries more than half the adult population was either overweight or obeseand ‘today’s overweight children will be tomorrow’s heart attack victims’.Governments in some countries have already acted. In some European countries, junk food isbanned in schools and marketing restrictions are imposed on food companies, with the UKrestricting television advertisements of junk food. Half the products of one in three European foodcompanies had been ‘reformulated’ to make them healthier. Industry had also accepted voluntarycurbs on advertising and modified their marketing to avoid further regulation. Soft drinks companiesand some food companies are stopping advertisements to children under the age of 12.The voluntary steps taken by the industry had persuaded the European Commission to giveself-regulation a chance. Beuc, the European Consumers’ Association, thinks the Commissionhas failed to tackle what the Commissioner himself called a ‘top public health priority’. Beucattacked the Commission’s policy paper as a ‘disappointing, unambitious and minimalistresponse to the problems of obesity and diet-related diseases’. 9 71