The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty - Pearson

Part 1 Marketing nowLaw of UnintendedConsequences—Therecognition that almost allhuman actions haveunforeseen outcomes.Unforeseen consequencesThe Law of Unintended Consequences encapsulates the recognition that almost all humanactions have at least one unintended consequence. With its origins in the Scottish Enlightenment,it is not a law in the legal sense but the realisation that each cause has more than one effect,including unforeseen consequences. Global warming is an unforeseen consequence of ourlifestyle – central heating, air-conditioning, lighting our homes, leaving electrical appliances onstandby, gap years in Australia . . .“Global warming is an unforeseen consequence of our lifestyle.“Our environment is complicated, so any intervention often has consequences we do not like.Early Australian settlers introduced rabbits to the continent as a familiar food source where theflora and fauna were unfamiliar. With no natural predators, rabbits multiplied uncontrollably andcreated deserts where they overgrazed on local plants. In response the settlers introduced foxes tokeep down the rabbit population. Unfortunately the European fox found Australian marsupials easiermeat than rabbits so, as the rabbit and fox populations soared, local plant and animal life declined.It looked like a great improvement when, in the 1930s, it was realised that non-toxic, nonflammablechlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were a substitute for the deadly refrigerants used inearly refrigerators – and great stuff to power aerosols too. Not until the 1970s did scientistsrealise that the CFC release had the potential to destroy the ozone layer and therefore exposemillions of people to higher levels of cancer-causing ultraviolet radiation.We are now facing some of the unforeseen consequences of reacting to the dangers of globalwarming. Biofuels seem a green alternative to releasing the carbon dioxide tied up in fossil fuels,like oil. This appears to be true of ethanol produced from sugar cane grown in the tropics butless true of ethanol made from corn, as being promoted in the US. This uses so much energy inmanufacture that it probably adds to global warming and the sudden allocation of corn toethanol production is forcing up food prices. The price rises caused major riots in Mexico andcommodity prices are pushing up food prices worldwide. Western economies can absorb theincreased cost of food, but what of poor people in the Third World?Biodiesel, a popular European solution to global warming, has its own unintended consequences.Rainforests in the tropics are being chopped down to create palm oil plantations.That was not the intention. Just as global warming is an unintended consequence of affluence,so intertwined are the global environment and economy that simple interventions designed toreduce the problem can have unforeseen consequences that bite back. 35Fortunately, not all unforeseen circumstances are bad. Pfizer found that a side-effect of usingtheir anti-angina treatment UK-92480 for old people also treated impotence, hence Viagra. It hasnow been found that Viagra may accelerate recovery from jet-lag. Regain, which helps the hairgrowth of balding people, was also discovered as an unexpected benefit of taking a product tofend off heart attacks. 3694