Corporate Social Responsibility And Stakeholder System

Responsibilities towards consumers

Discuss about the Corporate Social Responsibility and Stakeholder System.

Marketing management is critical to the success of any business. The idea of effective marketing is to reach out to customers and enhance awareness about the particular product or service (Kotler, 2015). There are various strategies that have been adopted by marketers across the globe to promote their product or service. Leading brands work hard to set the right positioning in the minds of consumers and garner their attention towards the product (Belz & Peattie, 2012). Earlier traditional promotional strategies were adopted by organizations. However, with the advent of technology and the growth of internet of things, even promotions have taken a digital form. This digitalization has allow brands to reach out to an even larger set of customers.

With the expanding target audience and customer base, the roles and responsibilities of marketers increase fundamentally; towards customers as well as towards society. This report aims to highlight various ethical facets that organizations must consider while promoting their product or service. Marketers must also ensure that as a part of this ecosystem, there are various responsibilities that they need to fulfill which are guided towards the betterment of the society that we live in.

The basic responsibility that an organization holds towards a customer is that of honest marketing. It is imperative that organizations do not aim to oversell their products and maintain honesty about the product or service that they are offering. There are various organizations which advertise their products by exaggerating the benefits offered by the product. PepsiCo’s mountain dew has various advertisements wherein it depicts that the consuming the drink will make people fearless and encourage them to indulge in adventurous activities like deep sea diving, bungee jumping or trekking large mountains. However, this is clearly a sign of dishonest or exaggerated advertising. On the other hand, Mountain Dew’s advertisements claim that the beverage contains the perfect combination of Dew, Juice and Electrolytes (for taste). As much as this may seem like a fair ad, the (for taste) bit is spoken so softly in these ads that it is often difficult to even hear it. If the Dew bottle is picked up, there is a small asterisk on electrolytes and in a minimal font, the bottle reads ‘Electrolytes for taste’. This kind of advertising misleads consumers.

Advertisements are ideally designed for informing customers about the product specifications, the needs that it aims to fulfill, the price at which it is available and how the product is different from its competitors (Wilson & Giligan, 2012). However, various marketers are using false and dishonest marketing strategies in order to attract the customer towards the product. Therefore the foremost responsibility of marketers towards consumers is to depict honesty behind their advertisements.

Societal considerations

Globalization has led to the movement of organizations from one part of the globe to another. Global brands are targeting audience throughout the world (Armstrong et. al., 2015). Therefore it is imperative that these brands carefully consider the regional and societal cultures while promoting products in a particular region. It is important for brands to gain more customers and it also makes it possible for customers to relate with the brand. For example Toyota’s marketing campaign for the new Camry was different across different countries and regions. The brand had launched four different ads in order to target African American, Hispanic, Asian American and the transcultural mainstream (New York Times, 2017). These ads are sensitive towards the region where they are broadcasted and try to instil a sense of affection and pride among consumers. For example, India is a Hindu dominated region. It would be inappropriate for a brand to curate or broadcast advertisements in India which are insensitive towards the Hindu Culture.

There are various products that are being sold which are essentially harmful for human health or may cause side-effects that adversely impact the individuals consuming it. In fact, businesses that manufacture edible products have an ethical and legal obligation to print all the ingredients along with their exact percentage on the product container. This helps people in being aware while consuming products. For example, all cigarette companies place a warning sign on their cartons which clearly highlights that cigarette smoking is injurious to health and may lead to various diseases including cancer (Masyita et. al., 2015). This is the moral as well as legal obligation for them. Similarly, petroleum being a natural resource and limitedly available, organizations often try to demarket the product which is essentially the procedure of negatively publicizing the product or discouraging its use. These warnings help in enhancing levels of consumer awareness and establishing trust towards the brand.

Product pricing plays a critical role in defining the marketing mix of an organization (Lee & Carter, 2011). Pricing strategies are designed with the intention of attracting customers and generating revenue for the business. However, there are various pricing ethics that need to be adopted by businesses in order to move forward in an ethical manner. Creating price wars to drive competition out of an industry may be considered to be an unethical move. The presence of different players in the industry raises industry standards and offers quality products to consumers. On the other hand, driving away players in an attempt to reduce competition by creating price wars or pricing products in an unethical manner is a morally incorrect step. Therefore organizations must be careful about adopting ethical pricing strategies and ensuring the overall growth of the industry and the quality of products received by the consumers.

Creating stakeholder value

Stakeholders are all the people that are directly associated with the business. Stakeholders for a business includes its customers, employees, suppliers, distributors, media personnel and producers. Creating stakeholder value is an ethical responsibility of marketers (Deng et. al., 2013). In order to create value for customers, it is imperative that marketers put efforts in understanding consumer needs and working towards fulfilling that need. This helps in bridging the gap between consumer demands and organizational offerings. Secondly, businesses must also put efforts in establishing long term and beneficial relationships with their customers. Valuing customer relationships is important for the success of the business and is ethically important in order to establish trust and mutual respect. Stakeholder value is critical for a business to make sure that the business along with all its stakeholders move towards the direction of growth and development (Frow & Payne, 2011). This mutual respect, trust and effectiveness assists in the long term sustainability of the business.

The responsibility of the business does not end once the product is sold to the consumer. Rather, the responsibility of the business continues much after. After sale service is the service that the business provides to customers after the customer has received the product. For consumer electronics and vehicles, after sale service may be in the form of providing regular service of the product and fixing or replacing the product if it is damaged within the warranty period. This after sale service must be made available to customers as and when required. The organization’s customer care executives must also be available for the customers via phone call, website or mobile application. For products that are bought online, the return and refund process must be user friendly and customer centric. This after sale service allows customers to rely on the brand and hence leads to establishment of better consumer relationships.

With the advent of technology people have switched to online shopping as opposed to shopping from brick and mortar stores. In such cases, people cannot touch and feel the product that the business aims to sell. Therefore, it becomes even more important for organizations to clearly specify the product details for all the products enlisted on the website. For example, Amazon is a massive Ecommerce giants which sells products over 12 different categories. For a consumer buying clothes or shoes, it is largely important that the website is user friendly and guide the consumers in the most appropriate manner regarding the size of the clothes or shoes that would fit them. This is why Amazon tries its best to show near real pictures of the product in the best attempt of allowing the consumers to understand how the product would appear in real. The exact dimensions of bags purchased on Amazon are mentioned. For the same reason, Amazon also encourages customers to share reviews, experiences and pictures of the product to enhance awareness among other consumers. This is an ethical responsibility of the brand towards its consumers.

Lastly, an important responsibility of any organization lies with delivering quality products to the consumers. One of the world’s legendary poet ‘Rumi’ once said, ‘Either appear what you are or become what you look like’. The same applies to marketing of different products. Marketers must make sure that either they deliver the products exactly how they are marketed or they must adopt to marketing strategies that honestly suit the original product quality.

Giant brands must ensure that the products ordered online are delivered to the customers are quality products. The products that are bought off brick and mortar stores must also deliver the promised quality and hence the sales personnel must be trained to not over sell the product. Delivering quality builds reliability and trust.

As a part of the large society that we live in, marketers have certain responsibilities towards the society within which they operate as well. These responsibilities assist the growth of the business and the society together. This in turn leads to sustainable growth of the business, the industry and the society. Marketers and especially large brands have immense power and reach. With greater power come greater responsibility and hence businesses are bestowed upon with various ethical responsibilities that they must fulfilled for sustainable growth.

The foremost role played by ethically responsible marketers is to ensure that they spread the message of peace, gender equality, and importance of education, harmony or responsibility. Marketers can do so through the advertisements on various traditional and digital platforms including television, print and social media. Surf Excel is a leading laundry brand which falls under the umbrella of P&G. There are various surf excel ads which convey positive messages that will lead to the betterment of society. Their recent campaign #Daagachehain or Surf Excel wins with stains. This campaign aims at creating an awareness among consumers that staining your clothes while performing a good deed reflects that these stains are good (YouTube, 2018). For example, one of the ads depicts that a small child stains his shirt while jumping in a pool of mud so that his friend who fell accidentally does not feel left out. The ads depict that staining is a sign of hard work and positive deeds. Similarly, there are various other ad campaigns that spread positive messages.

The new Nike ad encourages women to work out and find their greatness. The new ad shows an obese person running and not giving up despite the amount of time that it is taking him to lose weight. Such ads encourage audience are definitely a step ahead towards sustainable growth of the society.

Businesses also have a large amount of environmental responsibility. The amount of waste created and dumped and the consistent degradation of environment make it an ethical responsibility of businesses to manage their waste, reduce their carbon footprints and manage the use of plastic and other hazardous materials. In order to reduce the levels of air pollution, Uber taxi initiated carpooling service. This way people travelling to a similar or close location can share a taxi rather than booking two different taxis and enhancing global pollution levels. Similarly, Adobe a leading software firm has created over 90 green offices in the world. A green office ensures most effective waste management, reduced wastage of resources and efficient water level management (Ko et. al., 2013). Adobe has been a benchmark for organizations to maintain their carbon footprint levels.

Businesses must take environmental responsibility in order to improve living conditions for everyone and create a healthier living and breathing space for human beings. These responsibilities of the business is what makes them sustainable and also leads to the growth and development of the society within which they operate.

Co-creation is a management initiative or some form of an economic strategy wherein different parties come together and create value (Brunswicker & Rosemann, 2014). This is important for businesses as well as their customers. Recently DHL, world’s largest mail and Logistics Company took the challenge of co-creation and organized workshops and seminars for over 6000 customers. These customers took part in these workshops and assisted the brand in creating solutions that improve experience for everyone. Owing to the workshops, the customers and the brand were able to co-create a ‘Parcelcopter’ which is a test drone delivery service project based out in Germany (Moormann, 2015). Co-creation efforts have been put by various organizations that have led to tremendous innovations in various industries. Continuing the same will lead to improved understanding of customer needs, sustained growth of the business and industry, improved innovation and societal growth and development.

Corporate social responsibility is an age old concept where businesses understand their responsibility towards the environment and society and work towards putting efforts in fulfilling the same (Carroll, 2015). Businesses must ensure that as corporates they fulfil their social responsibilities. Forbes has listed over 50 companies with the best CSR practice in the world (Forbes, 2017). Microsoft has been ranked second on that list owing to their tremendous CSR efforts. Microsoft aims to empowering people, strengthening communities and protecting our planet (Microsoft, 2018). The brand has been actively fighting for human rights, data privacy, sourcing responsibly, reducing carbon footprints and conserving water among many more. CSR activities conducted by business are done with an aim to fulfill their responsibility towards the society within which they operate (Schwartz, 2017).

Conclusion

Marketers and businesses in different parts of the world have a sundry responsibilities towards their consumers as well as towards the society within which they operate. It is important that marketers understand and identify these responsibilities and work towards fulfilling the same. As a business, it foremost that their promotional strategies adopted are honest and do not mislead customers. The product or service sold to the customers must deliver quality and value.

Businesses must also ensure that customers are well informed, aware and can take the right decision. Warnings must also be posted for any possible harmful effects of the product. These responsibilities that the marketers have towards their consumers helps in building trust, creating respect and establishing long term and positive relationships between them.

Similarly, marketers have a large amount of responsibility towards societies. This is important because the society within which they function has provided them with a platform to grow. Therefore fulfilling societal responsibilities is imperative for the growth of the business and the society. This responsibility comes in the form of business’s efforts towards conserving the environment, fulfilling social responsibilities, co-creating and using their power of reach to spread positivity across the globe.

References

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