teachthe4ps.com - For instructors of marketing.

Should the U.S. government ban food marketing to kids?  Should kids cereals no longer include cartoon characters, free prizes inside, and other promotions directed at children?  That is the position taken by one side in a debate at USA Today “Ban food marketing to kids” (October 16, 2011).  The other side of the debate can be read in “Food fight over marketing to kids misses the mark” (USA Today, October 16, 2011), which advocates new voluntary guidelines created by the food industry.  We have also posted this over at Learn the 4 Ps with some questions for our students to answer.

The debate could be extended into your classrooms when you cover ethics, legal, or corporate social responsibility — which comes in the first and last chapters of our books.  It could also be discussed in the segmentation chapters (we have an Ethics Exercise on a topic relevant to this in our segmentation chapter) or in ethics when covering promotion or product.

This recent Wall Street Journal article, “India Solar Rules Burn U.S.” (February 8, 2011, non-subscribers click here) describes how India has banned the sale of foreign-made solar panels, unless the seller sets up a local manufacturing plant with a joint venture.  India has great potential for solar, but this change in the external market environment puts a crimp on U.S. solar firms.  This is a good example to use when discussing the legal aspects of the external market environment or international distribution.

Is the future of online advertising one of incredibly targeted advertising based on your interests, online activities and Facebook “likes,” or is it one dictated by robust privacy controls that keep those details out of the hands of marketers?

This article at CNN.com “‘Like’ it or not, online ads are getting personal” (January 31, 2011) starts by asking this question.  It seems to me that many of our students care very little about their personal privacy.  The article describes behavioral advertising and notes that the Federal Trade Commission is considering a “Do Not Track” list similar to the “Do Not Call” list created to curb telemarketing.  It looks like the browser makers are getting out in front of the issue by creating the “no track” option — Microsoft Explorer, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox offer the opportunity to “opt out” of behavioral tracking, few users are likely to select this option (that assumes the default is that you will be tracked — but that is another issue). Also posted at Learn the 4 Ps.

This issue raises important questions about ethics and legal issues in marketing, privacy, technology, and promotion.

We have long known that online sellers have the ability to offer the same product to different customers at different prices — in fact Amazon was caught doing this back in 2000 with a resulting PR disaster.  This is a great article in Slate‘s online magazine which offers some nice detail and examples in a short easy read (“How Much Is That Doggie in the Browser Window?” Slate, December 6, 2010).

Students usually find this practice abhorrent — and claim it must be illegal.  Selecting some of these examples might lead to an interesting in-class discussion of price discrimination along strategic, legal, and ethical lines.

This short article, “Misleading Claims on ‘Green’ Labeling” (Wall Street Journal, October 26, 2010 – non-subscribers may have to click here) calls attention to the troubling ethical and environmental problem of greenwashing.  For more detailed coverage, check out TerraChoice’s “Greenwashing Report 2010.”

Some highlights in the TerraChoice report:

• 4744 products in 2010 claimed to be “green” (up 73% from 2009)
• 95% of these committed at least one of the sins of greenwashing.

File under product labeling, product, ethics, social responsibility or sustainability.  What responsibility do marketers have?

This is an interesting video from the Wall Street Journal (July 30, 2010) provides a nice, easy-to-understand tutorial that explains Internet cookies.  At 7:14, it is a bit on the long side, but provides a pretty straightforward explanation of a technical issue of importance to our students.  Many of our students (and many of us) may not be familiar with behavioral targeting but it is clearly the future of advertising — unless concerns about privacy hang it up.  This might be shown in class to stimulate a discussion about online privacy.  My students seem to have a wide range of opinions about privacy — I am often surprised by their openness on Facebook for example.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest has brought a class action lawsuit against Coca Cola.  CSPI claims that Vitaminwater’s health claims violate FDA guidelines.  Each 20 oz bottle of Vitaminwater contains 33 grams of sugar and 125 calories.  Vitaminwater’s health claims may violate the FDA’s jelly bean policy — where you can’t claim that a jelly bean is healthy because is has no cholesterol.  See “Is Vitaminwater Really a Healthy Drink?” in Time (July 30, 2010).  [Note:  Also posted at “Learn the 4 Ps.”

Hmmmm.  This could be an interesting in-class discussion on a variety of levels.  There has long been a debate about the ethics of advertising to children.  Then there is the issue about the role of government.  Now the Bureau of Consumer Protection of the Federal Trade Commission has developed the Admongo website (www.admongo.gov) and game to teach kids about advertising.  The article in The New York Times, “In a World of Ads, Teaching the Young How to Read Them” (April 26, 2010).  The article notes…

The initiative seeks to educate children in grades four through six — tweens, in the parlance of marketing — about how advertising works so they can make better, more informed choices when they shop or when they ask parents to shop on their behalf.

While I could review the game and site, I know that good market research should be done with the target market.  Well I happen to have a fifth grader — right at the heart of the target market for the government effort.  So I asked Mallory to play the game and offer a brief review.  I know, bad marketing research to use a sample size of one.  After about 10 minutes — she had to get ready for school — it got a tentative thumb’s up.  She said it was “pretty good.”  When I asked if she would play it again if her dad did not force her, she said “Probably, maybe it would be more fun if I got to the higher levels.”   I asked about how fun it was compared to other online games, and she said, “I guess it is almost as fun as Bush Hot Dog” – I figured that was an endorsement.  I will let you know if she really goes back for more on her own.

In our text books the last chapter evaluates marketing from a micro- and macro- perspective.  This article could be used to discuss the ethics of advertising to children and the role of government.

This video looks at consumer interest in “green” products and points out how the “FTC Gets Tougher on False ‘Green’ Marketing,” (3:05, WSJ Video, April 17, 2010).  The video could be shown in a number of different class sessions.  It obviously fits with legal issues in advertising as well as with ethics and corporate social responsibility.  In our books it fits with some discussion of greenwasing in the last chapter.

We are amazed at how little concern our students (and my kids) have about their privacy.  Are our students aware of what they sacrifice and the potential future problems they may encounter with this carefree attitude?  You might find it helpful to assign or discuss “Rogue Marketers Can Mine Your Info on Facebook,” in Wired, January 5, 2010.