Social Cause Marketing - The Regis Group Inc

The Human Side of Business
and Marketing
Visible Efforts and Invisible Benefits
With a more human approach, marketing practices will focus
on consumer growth and the development of society, going
beyond product specificities and consumption conditions.
This vision turns marketing operations into a human endeavor
that zeroes in on people, contributing not only to their
wellbeing but also to their individual and social advancement.
Thus, an aesthetic and social concern complements the
ethical dimension that rules behavior, providing a more
complete, well-rounded notion of human beings.
The essence of business is to create
value for its market, focusing
on people, influencing
both individuals and the society at
large. Clearly, mass media plays a significant
role in the cultural development,
with marketing actions accounting
for a large share of media
messages. As a result, marketing
practices involve a dimension that
goes well beyond their strictly technical
scopeóthey help forge the local
culture.
Marketing tools can also be used
to influence society, driving positive
social changes in what is typically referred
to as social marketing, while
ethical considerations shift the marketing
focus from caveat emptor to
caveat venditor. These matters are superseded
by a human consideration
of business and marketing actions
that project their central role as cultural
drivers.
Social Responsibilities in
Business and Marketing
Marketing practices can influence society,
supporting and promoting welfare
improvements. However, they
are also responsible for undesired results
derived from the use of marketing
tools. The social responsibilities
embedded in marketing operations
become all the more evident in deregulated,
open and competitive
modern markets, where the former
metaphor of ëan invisible handí is replaced
by the many ñ and seemingly
irrelevant ñ decisions made by marketing
practitioners, who impersonate
ëthe visible handí in markets.
The responsibility for delivering
and growing sustained consumer
value has also a direct effect on job
creation ñ a key issue in prevailing
economic systems. Conversely, the
lack of creativity to expand markets
leads to cost cuts ñ also dubbed as
reengineering ñ that eventually
reaches managers themselves, driving
them towards outplacement. In
addition to greater responsibilities,
professional executives gain relevance
in the age of financial capitalism
that has followed its predecessor,
entrepreneurial capitalism, dominated
by family businesses.
With lower capital investments
and higher returns, entrepreneurs
and their families led the creation of
new business ventures. Growth and
increasing competitive challenges required
greater investments, leading
to opening the equity ownership
when self-generated funds proved insufficient.
More sophisticated tools
were needed to make investment,
pricing, output, salary and human resources
decisions, giving room to the
growing influence of professionally
trained managers. Management
teams were encouraged to drive businesses
as independent units, with
their performance measured in terms
of business income. And as profits
grew, family owners found less incentive
to engage in executive tasks.
As a result, competition no longer
confronted thousands of small companies
regulated by the marketís invisible
hand. Rather, large companies,
ruled by their professional managers,
competed against each other.
As described by Alfred Chandler 1 ,
these executives became the visible
hand that contributes to build markets,
where consumers rule ñ albeit
inevitably influenced by the actions
deployed by executives to secure
benefits for shareholders.
Marketing managers influence the
factors that shape markets. Their
practices contribute to change purchasing
and consumer habits ñ as
well as, eventually, customs. While
they do not actually create needs,
they do emphasize the social values
embedded in the society. Bearing in
mind that, exceeding a minimum
level, wealth and poverty are relative
notions, it may argued that marketing
1
Alfred Chandler, The Visible Hand, Belknap,
Harvard University Press, 1977.
SEPTEMBER 2009
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EFFECTIVE EXECUTIVE