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Socially Responsible Advertising

By Gano Bristol

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         Several advertisements lately are pushing social responsibility more than sales. Is it financially feasible for these companies to ask users to reduce usage of their products or just a slight aberration in their advertising game plan? Are companies using these prominently displayed advertisements on billboards merely as a way to increase their "brand" or do they want results that are directly proportionate to their spending?

         In the modern world, advertising has become a mode of communication rather than just a sales medium. The most effective way to communicate with consumers, present and potential, is to connect with them while not necessarily pushing their products. This connection with the consumers is the essence of successful advertising.

         These new advertisements for Hutch and DNA are prominently displayed on billboards across Bombay. Hutch is telling us to behave responsibly and politely and to not to take pictures without first taking permission and also to switch off our phones in movie theatres. They have a series of ads like: Hum Aapke Hain Tring Tring and Ali Baba and Tring Tring. The ads are innovative and sure to make an impact. DNA (i.e., the newspaper Daily News and Analysis) states: "There's no difference between our rich and poor. They both spit generously on the roads." Superb. Simply Suberb.

            One has to wait and see if this trend is just another marketing gimmick or the growth of a social conscious by advertising agencies and companies using them. In the advertising world, everything is for the sole purpose of making money, increasing sales and building the brand and by displaying a good image of the company, the purpose of the ad is to increase sales, just like any other regular advertisement.

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Resource LibraryEmail Print page Journal of Marketing

Socially Responsible Organizational Buying: Environmental Concern as a Noneconomic Buying Criterion.

Rated: by 0 MembersPublished 7/1/1994

Author: Minete E. Drumwright

          The greening of corporate America has added a new and different type of criterion to some organizational buying decisions--social responsibility. Scholars have given little attention to such noneconomic buying criteria.

          On the basis of a study of 35 buying processes in ten organizations and in-depth examination of 21 of those processes, the author addresses how and why socially responsible buying comes about in organizations. The finding suggest that two factors have been key to the success of socially responsible buying initiatives. One factor is the presence of a skillful policy entrepreneur. Policy entrepreneurs are found to have many of the same characteristics as business entrepreneurs, but invest their resources in instituting new organizational policies. Their zeal for socially responsible buying is rooted in a commitment based on a complex and often difficult process of moral reasoning. The second factor influencing the success of socially responsible buying is the organizational context within which policy entrepreneurs operate. The author differentiates organizational contexts on the basis of whether the socially responsible buying is part of a deliberate corporate strategy and further classifies them through a framework and identifies themes observed across the contexts. Guidance is offered for vendors marketing socially responsible products and services.

Ethical and socially responsible advertising: can it be achieved?

Academy of Marketing Studies Journal, Jan-July, 2002 by Rob H. Kamery, Sarah T. Pitts, Cayce R. Lawrence

             The advertising industry has become a vital part of the United States' economy. The Pontifical Council for Social Communications states that advertising has a great influence on a consumer's understanding of life, one's culture, and the world (Foley, 1998). Advertising encourages economic growth through information being made available about competing goods and services. However, advertising can be deceptive, encourage unlimited consumption, create confusion for the consumer, and intensify destructive desires such as lust and greed. Advertising encourages consumption by showing improvement in features and quality of products and services. It promotes products such as colas, cigarettes, and alcohol, which can cause consumers to use products in excess, causing possible dangerous side effects (Boddewyn, 1999). Advertising is only one aspect that goes into shaping consumer choices, and the role advertising plays in either initiating or reinforcing consumer trends is dubious (Schudson, 1984). Laws regulating advertisements should be minimal because the public can self-regulate false or misleading ads through the use of personal boycotts. Private and public consumer advocacy groups exist to inform the public of misleading advertisements, poor quality products, and potentially dangerous products. Government regulation has its place in protecting the consumer through the placement of warning labels on potentially dangerous products, but consumerism is ultimately in the hands of the consumer.

Links to the folders:

http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv28n1/v28n1-noted.pdf
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/119014960/PDFSTART
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6167/is_1-2_6/ai_n28975589/