Demolition or Remake? - Critical Marketing Between Hardliners and Engagers

What’s the aim of critical marketing? According to Tadajewski and Brownlie (2008) the aim of critical marketing isn’t just to scrutinize and criticize the techniques, traditions and consequences of commercial marketing, but also to attempt to improve the way marketing actually works in contemporary society. I’m more than delighted about the latter point. Academics all too often tend to conceive of themselves as societal watchdogs on a mission to reveal limitations, shortcomings and injustices. They view this negative approach as constructive and, thereby, fail to act on their responsibility to try to improve the current state of affairs. Being influential scholars in the field of critical marketing, Tadajewski and Brownlie’s constructive approach to critical marketing deserves recognition.

On means and ends
What I can’t share with Tadajewski and Brownlie is their vision of what it takes to act proactively as a critical marketer. For instance, they argue that social marketing – the branch of marketing that aims at improving human behavior through marketing techniques – in its current forms is uncritical, because it employs existing commercial marketing techniques. Even though the aim of social marketing is to improve such goals as healthy eating, smoking cessation, physical exercise, safe sex and to fight such things as bullying, social inequalities, binge drinking, informational deprivation and the like, Tadajewski and Brownlie won’t accept social marketing as part of the critical marketing movement.

The reason can’t be with the goals. It must be because of the means. They render social marketing uncritical, because it uses the same methods as commercial marketing, which, in their view, is responsible for a fair share of this world’s failings. Ruling out all prevalent commercial marketing methods on the grounds that they have been used in ways that have caused negative impact on individuals and society at large doesn’t seem very reasonable, if the very same methods can be used to obtain a significant amount of social goods.

Methodological pluralism is – or should be – a golden rule in critical marketing. Thus, discarding a whole bunch of powerful marketing methods that can be used to promote valuable non-commercial goals is a very uncritical approach to critical marketing. Critical marketers should only fight commercial marketing techniques if they have been demonstrated to suffer from an inherent tendency to create social problems or otherwise impair quality of life. It’s not commercial marketing methods per se, but bad application of the marketing methods that deserves criticism.

Should critical marketers advocate for a new social paradigm?
Tadajewski and Brownlie argue that we need a new social paradigm. That critical marketers should rethink the relations between marketing and society along a brand new social paradigm. In their view, we should leave the current belief structure that organizes western societies around an ideology of consumption, private ownership and liberal market-oriented democracy. I can think of two reasons to try to do this. First reason would be if we could point to another, and superior, social paradigm. But in the absence of any convincing alternative social paradigms, the only reason, at least the only one that comes to my mind, to leave the actual social paradigm would be a fundamental disbelief in the ability to improve the actual paradigm. However, improvements are possible. Even from the side of commercial marketing.

Divergent marketing
In a recent paper (under review) I’ve introduced the distinction between convergent and divergent marketing. Convergent marketing addresses the consumer as he or she is and tries to target the consumer’s actual set of beliefs, desires, hopes, dreams and so forth. Divergent marketing tries to change the personal identity of the consumer by transforming his or her web of beliefs, desires, hopes, dreams, actions and so forth.

Convergent marketing that, say, appeals to a consumer’s dream universe tries to link a product or organization to the consumer’s actual dream of something. By contrast, divergent marketing would try to transform the consumer’s actual dream universe and link a product to this new dream or set of dreams. To put it a bit differently: convergent marketing taps into the portrait of the consumer obtained through market research – divergent marketing tries to change it. Thus, instead of tapping into the consumer’s actual worldview, divergent marketing encourages reflection on stereotypes and promotes new social or political ideas.

Let us have a look at a two examples of commercial divergent marketing. Back in 1996 Nike launched a pre-Olympic campaign featuring the disabled athlete Peter Hull. Below the portrait of the athlete the text says: ‘Peter is not like ordinary people. He’s done the marathon.’ Here, as Kotler, Armstrong, Saunders and Wong (1999, 5)) notes, ‘Nike forces people to reconsider stereotyped ideas’. A contemporary example (my favorite one) is Dove’s ‘Campaign for Real Beauty’. The campaign portrays wrinkled, chubby and gray-haired models – that under normal conditions wouldn’t have found their way to the billboards of the cityscape – as beautiful and attractive women.

Divergent marketing as a step towards a better world
Running the risk of being labeled a completely naïve village idiot in the pocket of the industry, I must admit that I actually do believe in the power of commercial divergent marketing to make the world a better place to live in. Nike isn’t just promoting trainers but also valuable lifestyles; Dove isn’t just promoting cosmetics but also valuable ideals. In both cases the promotion of non-commercial goals (lifestyles and ideals) is for the better.

Nike encourages people to put greater emphasis on the value of physical activity (extremely important in relation to lifestyle diseases that quite often are causally correlated to lack of physical activity). Dove encourages people to revise their narrow view of female beauty and instead focus on natural beauty in order to make beauty a more inclusive ideal that can be approached by most women. This is extremely important in so far as stereotyped ideals of beauty have a tendency to impact negatively on self-esteem.

I don’t try to sell commercial marketing as a silver bullet. My point is simply that in so far as divergent commercial marketing can support the efforts to improve the existing social paradigm, then – in the absence of attractive, alternate social paradigms – we should appreciate and encourage the constructive aspects instead of flushing the whole lot down the drain.

References

Kotler, P., Armstrong, G., Saunders, J. & Wong, V. (1999). Principles of Marketing – Second European Edition, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Tadajewski, M. & Brownlie, D. (2008). ‘Critical Marketing: A Limit Attitude’, Critical Marketing, M. Tadajewski & D. Brownlie (eds.), West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons.

Is There Room for Fruit Branding?

In the recent article 'Can the food industry play a constructive role in the obesity epidemic', Ludwig & Nestle (2008) argues that the logic of capitalism leaves the food industry with only two options to raise profits – both of which lead to unhealthy diets and obesity. They write:

“In a Western-style capitalistic economy, food corporations, like all corporations, must make the financial return to stockholders their first priority. ... To expand profits in this environment, food companies have only 2 options: convince customers to eat more (contributing directly to obesity) or increase profit margins, especially by marketing reformulated or repackaged products [i.e. processed foods] (an indirect contribution).”

Ludwig & Nestle argue that not just the first but also the second option contributes to an unhealthy diet – and to obesity – because processed foods are, by and large, high in fat. If sound, this argument impacts seriously on the expectation that health branding can promote healthy eating and healthy living: by implication the argument suggests that food health branding indirectly will lead to obesity either because it will encourage consumption of more foods (where the opposite is what health concerns demand) or because the branded products will be processed and therefore most likely to be unhealthy.

A carrot is a carrot. How strong is this argument? Even if it is true that processed foods are, on balance, as unhealthy as they assert, the argument does not tell the whole truth. It rests on the assumption that businesses cannot raise profits on commodities like milk, apples and carrots. But that assumption seems rather controversial to me. Why do they not consider branding of healthy products like fruit and vegetables as an alternative way – and, in terms of public health, quite a desirable one – to raise profits in the food industry?

One prevalent reason for skepticism concerning raising profits on fruit and vegetable branding goes like this: fruits and vegetables are not likely to be as heavily branded as processed foods, because they are commodities and commodities are all the same whether branded or not. The consumer does not experience any relevant difference between a brand and a non-brand commodity.

Everything can be a brand. In terms of current brand research, the claim that a brand experience is contingent on the product type is highly controversial. The standard assumption in branding literature is that anything from products and organizations over nations and ideas to public health can be branded, because the brand experience is an immaterial, symbolic dimension that exists and functions independently of any specific product type.

A visit to you local superstore will make the point down-to-earth. In Tesco, for example, you will find apples featuring Winnie the Pooh and other Disney characters, in Asda you will meet The Great Stuff Garden Gang on carrots, and going to Sainsbury may introduce you to the concept of Kids Apples. Moreover, marketers invent new concepts like ‘fun size apple’ and ‘easy peelers’ to establish fruit brands. Why? Simply because we are more than ready to pay a premium price to get the right fruit and vegetable brands.

Healthy profits. Holding this in mind it becomes clear that there exists at least one more option to raise profits in the current, mature food market; an option, which even Ludwig & Nestle have to admit is in the interest of the public good: to create strong fruit and vegetable brands. And the market is there - more than 80 percent of processed foods are branded, whereas only 19 percents of fruits and vegetables are branded (McGinnis, Gootman & Kraak, 2006, p. 44).

References

Ludwig, D.S. & Nestle, M. (2008). Can the Food Industry Play a Constructive Role in the Obesity Epidemic?, Journal of American Medical Association, 300:15, 1808-1811.

McGinnis, J.M., Gootman, J.A., & Kraak, V.I. (eds.) (2006). Food Marketing to Children and Youth: Threat or Opportunity?, Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press.

Is CSR Just a Big Corporate Illusion?

Encouraging as it sounds, the belief that commercial health branding will – or even has a considerable potential to – lead to health promotion is nevertheless fallacious. In terms of theory and experimental studies marketing may impact positively on social norms and values that bear on health behavior, but in the real world of global capitalism raising profits is always the main driver for corporate organizations. Whatever kind of social aims corporate organizations promise to promote, expanding profits is always the motivating reason.

Reluctance and skeptisism. This fact often leaves researchers either unconvinced about the true potential of commercial marketing to push health (e.g. Evans and Hastings, 2008) or directly pessimistic (e.g. Ludwig & Nestle, 2008). Is reluctance and sometimes even pessimism in relation to commercial health promotion reasonable? Specific cases of health brand deception (e.g. the Nutella-case (http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/adjudications/Public/TF_ADJ_44078.htm) shows that we have a strong reason to be extremely critical in particular cases, but is it fair to say that we, by and large, should meet corporate promises to promote public health with an attitude of disinclination because the corporate world as such does not have a true interest in taking corporate social responsibility? Reflections on brand equity discredits the pessimism and grounds a reason to expect true health benefits from commercial food health branding. Or so we will argue.

Brand equity. According to Aaker’s (1996) influential brand equity model, brand equity is a set of assets (e.g. brand awareness, brand loyalty, perceived quality, brand associations). These assets provide consumer value that, in turn, provides corporate value. Branding products as healthy without delivering on the promise and being exposed for this in the medias is likely to deteriorate consumers’ perceived quality and create negative brand associations. In other words: not delivering on a health brand promise backfires on brand equity, which causes consumer value and, thus, corporate brand value to drop.
According to Keller’s customer-based brand equity model, the power of a brand is a function of consumer’s perception of and reaction to a brand. He says:

“A brand has positive customer-based brand equity when consumers react more favorably to a product and the way it is marketed when the brand is identified than when it is not (say, when the product is attributed to a fictitious name or is unnamed). … a brand has negative customer-based brand equity if consumers react less favorably to marketing activity for the brand compared with an unnamed or fictitiously named version of the product (2008, 48).”

As was the case with Aaker’s model, Keller’s brand equity model implies that if a brand conveys a health promise without delivering thoroughly on that promise, then brand equity is decreasing due to negative consumer perceptions and reactions.

Genuine corporate social concern. Now, where does these comments on brand equity take us? They demonstrate that we have a serious reason to expect that corporate organizations – that are concerned about their brand equity – have a strong corporate reason to act with genuine social concern whenever they make health brand promises. Thus, we (consumers, watchdogs, researchers) have a reason not to be too skeptical about corporate promises to promote health. There is a strong corporate reason not to let the consumer down on social promises. Despite the existence of cynical examples of fake health branding, we have a reason to believe in the power of commercial health branding to push public health in the right direction.

References

Aaker, D. (1996). Building Strong Brands, New York: Simon and Schuster Inc.

Evans, W.D. & Hastings, G. (2008). Public Health Branding, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Keller, K.L. (2008). Strategic Brand Management (3rd ed.), Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Ludwig, D.S. & Nestle, M. (2008). Can the Food Industry Play a Constructive Role in the Obesity Epidemic?, Journal of American Medical Association, 300:15, 1808-1811.

The Taste of Branding

Did you know that carrots don’t taste like carrots. I mean, of course carrots have a taste, but the precise nature of the taste - urghh or uhmmm - is not in the carrot. It’s in the bag, package, design, placement, wrapping… In the brand.

A recent article, 'Effects of Fast Food Branding on Young Children's Taste Preferences', demonstrates that children's experience of food taste is influenced by their perception of the wrapping and packaging the food come in. The children in the study reported burgers, chips and CARROTS to be more tasty when they came in McDonald wrapping compared to when they came in neutral white wrapping. The presence of McDonald wrapping simply intensified the preference for the food products.

What is the lesson of this observation?

Some have used the results as a vehicle to further ground the call for more regulation on food marketing. Clearly, the results can push that call, because they make clear that good branding of bad products has a measurable impact on childrens food preferences. They raise.

On second thoughts, however, the results do not unequivocally point to that interpretation. Since food branding impacts on food taste preference regardless of the specific product type in question, food branding is a powerful tool to raise preferences for healthy products as well.

We have to choose between two interpretations. One, that calls for more regulation. Another, that calls for encouragement.

If we choose to argue in favor of more regulation, we may stop branding of junk food. This is good to the extent that we protect children against some harm. But, on the other side, we have not done much to raise the preference for healthy living and healthy eating. And we have such a desperate need to do that. Banning all marketing for junk food will not stop the obesity epidemic. It will not stop until the social norms surrounding healthy living has changed significantly. And the food industry is one of the most important strategic partners in the efforts to reinforce the social and cultural norms governing our health behavior.

Thus, if we choose to use such results to encourage industry to brand carrots, skimmed-milk and apples, we might very well raise children's preferences for these products and thereby push public health in the right direction. If we choose to reinforce the call for more regulation, the corporate interest in turning healthy living into something attractive is not likely to be very strong.

Robinson, T.N., Borzekowski, D.L.G., Matheson, D.M. et al., 2007, 'Effects of Fast Food Branding on Young Children's Taste Preferences', Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med, 161:792-797.

The Power of Desire?

I believe in the power of desire. I think that human beings quite often are driven by a mixture of emotional and rational reasons. And it will take no one by surprise that I think that emotional decision making is particular high with food consumers. Research suggests that quite often consumers' cognitive processing ressources are constrained and that there is a positive correlation between 'constrained cognitive processing ressources' and 'tendency to act emotionally'.

Such observations have formed my believe in marketing as a powerful tool to influence people towards healthier food choices. However, even loaded with this kind of arguments I am sometimes met with rather forceful counterarguments.

One key objection is that marketing only has limited influence on consumers food behavior, whereas product availability is the structural silver bullet through which we can influence consumer behavior most effectively. In its most simple form the argument claims that by, on the one hand, making healthty food easily available and, on the other, constraining access to unhealthy food, we can effectively influence consumers towards healthier food habits. At the heart of this 'avialability approach' we find the belief that consumer behavior is determined by physical constraints: if it is hard to get hold of a banana, but easy to reach a chocolate bar, then we go for the chocolate. And vice versa.

In my view the 'availability approach' suffers from one fundamental shortcoming: We can only influence food behavior in a situation, where we are the managerial masters of that situation. By managerial control we can get totally rid of unhealthy food in the workplace or school, but beyond these managerial walls where each individuals behavior is determined - not by the boss or the head master - but by the will of that individual, availability is not exactly that magical tool, because of the simple fact that all kinds of products are equally available.

On a daily basis consumers encounter situations, where they have to choose between healthy and unhealthy foods (in the supermarket, cafe, canteen, restaurant). And in such situations the choice between healthy and unhealthy is not determined by availability, but desirability.