Consuming for the Social Good: Marketing,Consumer Citizenship,and the Possibilities of Ethical Consumption

Introduction

Do consumers make good citizens? In the past, sociology’s answer was a firm ‘no’. Social theorists typically associated consumerism with selfish pleasure and status-seeking difference, while citizenship referred to the common pursuit of the social good (Ewen, 1976; Galbraith, 1958; Marcuse, 1964; Packard, 1957; Veblen, 1994[1899]; see also Schor, 2005; Schudson, 2006). Daniel Miller (2001) argues that even today, sociologists tend to view consumerism as intrinsically evil, the pressing question being how to curb consumerism, not how it might contribute to the betterment of society.

The consumer/citizen binary has been challenged in recent years by cultural sociologists who have shown how cultural norms and values shape market behavior (Zelizer, 2011). Fourcade and Healy (2007), for example, review recent work that defines markets as inevitably moral insofar as they categorize, normalize, and naturalize economic behavior. People deploy moral schemes whenever they participate in the buying, selling, and trading of goods and services. These economic behaviors may be guided by principles of efficiency and productivity, and/or by more lofty goals, such as social justice and freedom of choice. But in every instance, they argue, market exchange is saturated with moral meaning (see also Massengill and Reynolds, 2010).

This approach receives ample support from historians (Perry, 2006). Lizabeth Cohen (2003), who describes US society as a ‘consumers’ republic’, draws attention to the ways that people have defended consumerism by linking it to the best interests of both individuals and the nation throughout the 20th century. She argues that in the post-war era, consumers were conceptualized as the ideal citizens. Powerful policy makers, business and labor leaders, and civic groups agreed that the goal of the republic was to expand consumerism, and further, that through their consumption, Americans could promote freedom, equality, and democracy at home and abroad. Marketers reinforced this view through advertisements linking the satisfaction of consumer desires to the country’s best interests. Shoppers came to believe that they served the nation by striving to satisfy their personal material wants in the marketplace.

This 20th-century consensus continues to shape American politics and hegemonic notions of the social good in the 21st century. When President Bush encouraged Americans to continue shopping in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, he was expressing the obligations of consumer citizenship. To keep the economy afloat and to promote the national interest, the government considered it essential to sustain high levels of consumption. Thus the idea of ‘consumer citizenship’ is at once descriptive of the relationship between government, consumers, and businesses, and ideological, in that it promotes a particular vision of the social good.

In this paper, we investigate how consumer citizenship is conceptualized in contemporary marketing discourse. Through an analysis of popular marketing textbooks, we reveal that a new marketing strategy is being promulgated in business schools, called relationship management marketing (RMM). Our goals are (1) to describe RMM; (2) to explore the model of consumer citizenship implicit in RMM; and (3) to evaluate the social and political implications of this marketing strategy.

One of the hallmarks of RMM is its endorsement of cause marketing. This is marketing that pledges a firm’s support for a given social cause in exchange for customers’ participation in revenue producing activities. Popular examples include Project RED, Fair Trade Coffee, and the Pink Ribbon marketing campaign. A number of sociologists recently have investigated these and other alternative or conscientious forms of advertising (Binkley, 2003; Johnston, 2008; Micheletti et al., 2004; Soper, 2007; Trentmann, 2007). These studies analyze the potential of cause marketing to raise awareness of important political, social, and ecological issues. They also examine the ease with which this type of activism is appropriated by corporate interests.

For example, Josée Johnston (2008) investigated cause marketing at Whole Foods Market (see also Johnston and Cairns, 2012). In its advertising, Whole Foods claims that its upscale shoppers can satisfy their highly cultivated desires while at the same time promoting environmental wellbeing and social harmony. Johnston labels this message ‘neoliberal’ because it implies that socially responsible businesses and their customers are the ideal guardians of the public good. She argues that customers should be wary of these claims. While this marketing approach may make well-to-do and socially responsible shoppers feel good about their purchases, in the end, corporations are the primary beneficiaries, not social justice or the environment. As Johnston and Cairns (2012) illustrate, popular discourses on ‘eating for change’ find no contradiction between eating well and increased political awareness. While the authors explore many of the tensions hiding beneath the surface of these discourses, the neoliberal model of consumer politics allows foodies to carry on declaring theirs a ‘delicious revolution’.

Similarly, Roopali Mukherjee and Sarah Banet-Weiser (2012) situate diverse forms of ‘commodity activism’ (what we are calling ‘cause marketing’) within a neoliberal political context. They define commodity activism as the promotion of social change in and through consumer behavior; their edited volume features case studies of such campaigns led by corporations, corporate philanthropies, and celebrities. Without dismissing these modes of activism as ‘simply hypocrisy, incorporation, or corporate appropriation’ (2012: x), they nevertheless argue that ‘shopping for change’ promotes the neoliberal project to enshrine the free market (and not the government) as the chief guarantor of individual rights and liberties. Their book explores how commodity activism has transformed the meanings and identities of social change activists, evaluating this new mode of resistance in the context of the history of American social movements.

This article adds to this literature by exploring the production side of cause marketing. Through a study of marketing textbooks, we show how and why college business students are taught to promote social causes. We uncover not only the rationale for cause marketing, but the underlying assumptions about society upon which it is based. We demonstrate that the textbooks do indeed promote a neoliberal model of consumer citizenship, specifying distinct roles for government, businesses, and consumers. By carefully delineating the model of consumer citizenship on which cause marketing and commodity activism are based, we show exactly what is at stake in creating a more just model of consumer citizenship.

Methods

To examine the marketing strategy and model of consumer citizenship currently endorsed by marketers we conducted a qualitative content analysis of the most influential ‘principles of marketing’ textbooks. ‘Principles of marketing’ is a required course for business undergraduates. It covers a diverse range of topics including marketing research, consumer behavior, retailing, supply chain management, and marketing theory and practice. Although authors are largely constrained to report on academic research, which excludes the bulk of research generated by consultants working for private corporations, marketing textbooks are nevertheless an important means of diffusion for marketing theory and research. These textbooks also make recurrent references to the appropriate rights, roles, and responsibilities of consumers, government, and businesses. Thus they construct and promote a specific and coherent understanding of consumer citizenship intended to influence future business executives and marketing professionals.

To generate a sample for this study, we first determined the most influential marketing textbooks through sales figures. Previously, researchers assembling lists of the most influential or widely adopted principles of marketing textbooks have relied on procuring proprietary market share or adoption records directly from individual publishers (Demoss and Nicholson, 2005; Spiller and Scovotti, 2008). Because publishers tend to not make this information public, however, they are not always able or willing to share these figures with researchers. When publishers do cooperate, there is no guarantee that the information obtained from each publisher will be directly comparable.

To generate our list of the top selling ‘principles of marketing’ textbooks we obtained the Market Share Report for principles of marketing textbooks for 2009–2010 (as of April) compiled by Bowker’s PubTrack Higher Education^TM. PubTrack Higher Education^TM is the preeminent resource for new and used textbook sales, book-in-use, and market share information. Designed specifically for use by textbook publishers, PubTrack Higher Education^TM surveys approximately 65% of all bookstores using point of sales and book-in-use data to record which titles are adopted and purchased at colleges and universities across the United States and Canada. From these records the ten top selling titles were chosen. While we had originally intended to choose the overall top ten selling principles of marketing textbooks, multiple or international editions of the same title made the top sellers list. Therefore, we instead combined the figures for all editions and calculated total sales (including new and used book sales) by textbook titles. Our sample of the top selling titles varies only slightly from Demoss and Nicholson’s (2005) and Spiller and Scovotti’s (2008) lists. Table 1 presents the textbooks included in our study with aggregate total sales volume.

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Table 1.

Top selling marketing textbooks for 2009–2010*.

Units Sold	Author	Title	Publisher	Edition Cited
Over 25,000	Lamb et al.	MKTG	Cengage	3
20,000–24,999	Boone and Kurtz	Contemporary Marketing	Cengage	13
10,000–14,999	Armstrong and Kotler	Marketing: An Introduction	Pearson	7
	Kerin et al.	Marketing	McGraw-Hill	8
	Kerin et al.	Marketing: The Core	McGraw-Hill	2
	Kotler and Armstrong	Principles of Marketing	Prentice Hall	11
5,000–9,999	Grewal and Levy	Marketing	McGraw-Hill	1
	Perreault et al.	Basic Marketing	McGraw-Hill	16
Under 5,000	Lamb et al.	Essentials of Marketing	Cengage	6
	Solomon et al.	Marketing: Real People, Real Choices	Pearson	4

*

Sales figures combine sales of new and used books for all editions of the same text.

Source: Bowker’s PubTrack Higher Education^TM Market Share Report for ‘Principles of Marketing’ textbooks for 2009–2010 (as of April 2012).

Once the titles were selected, we conducted a qualitative content analysis of the texts. While both conceptual and relational styles of content analyses seek to quantitatively measure the frequency and significance of ‘messages’ within a text, thereby measuring the presumed level of importance of each message, our objective was hermeneutical and not conducive to quantification. Moreover, given the variety of topics covered in principles of marketing textbooks and the often implicit ways notions of consumer citizenship are evoked, coding by frequency was inappropriate. Qualitative content analysis involves a close reading of the texts and a systematic interpretation and rearticulation of given texts into new narratives (Krippendorff, 2004). Readers may recognize our specific analytic method as containing elements of both discourse analysis and ethnographic content analysis. As in a discourse analysis, we were concerned with ideological manifestations of consumer citizenship within these texts, and how these are used to establish and maintain social relationships (Brown and Yule, 1983). In addition, our analytic approach resembles ethnographic content analysis in that we aimed to document and understand what is being assumed and communicated about consumer citizenship in the textbooks as an ethnographer would conceptualize human action in the field (Altheide, 1987).

Specifically, we were interested in examining (1) the contemporary marketing model promoted in the textbooks, and (2) the model of consumer citizenship upon which this marketing strategy is based. The textbooks were read and coded for both explicit and implicit references to the ideal roles of consumers, government, and business in society. We also coded instances where the themes of the social good or social welfare appeared. Interpreting the data was a reflexive and interpretative process, where constant comparison was made between the textbooks to clarify arguments and contexts. While in a few instances we noted significant differences between the textbooks, nine of the ten textbooks were so similar that they made a single, coherent argument. During analysis the outlying textbook served as a comparative case, in several instances helping to highlight what is distinctive about the rest of the textbooks in our sample.

Such uniformity among the textbooks warrants a brief explanation. Organizational theorists have used the concept of institutional isomorphism to explain how diverse organizations, in the absence of external regulation or incentives, become structurally more similar (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983). Mimetic and normative mechanisms of isomorphism in particular seem useful in explaining the uniformity in marketing textbooks. Mimetic isomorphism is a product of organizational uncertainty or ambiguity which encourages organizations to model themselves on other organizations, while normative isomorphism is a product of the collective effort of members to define organizational norms and legitimize their claims for autonomy. Both of these mechanisms are certainly at play in the field of marketing. Moreover, as Coser et al. (1982) show in their study of book publishing, the textbook publishing industry itself functions as a ‘cultural gatekeeper’, resulting in increased standardization among textbooks and textbook publishers. The authors argue that in the case of college textbooks, this process is due in large part to the ways in which the textbook publishing industry is organized, including the tendency to target introductory courses and the fact that course instructors, who from the publisher’s perspectives are the textbooks’ real audience, are a relatively stable and predictable market. Thus, for these reasons, the near unanimity of the textbooks on the topic of best practices and principles of marketing should not be surprising or unanticipated.

In the next section of the paper, we provide a brief discussion of the history of marketing. This section explains the rise of RMM, highlighting the unique features of this approach. Following this brief overview, we present a detailed discussion of RMM, followed by a section that analyzes the discourse of consumer citizenship implicit in RMM. Our conclusion highlights the profoundly ideological foundation of current marketing practices. We critique marketers’ claims that the interests of profitable consumers align with – and even advance – the interests of society, and sketch out an alternative model of consumer citizenship that we argue should be promoted in marketing textbooks.

A Brief History of Marketing

Three major paradigms have been dominant in the history of marketing: (1) mass marketing; (2) niche marketing; and (3) relationship management marketing (RMM). To say that a form of marketing is dominant means that marketers at the time considered it the best practice granted social, technological, political, and economic conditions. The first approach, mass marketing, arose during the post-World War II era. Mass marketers imagined a population with relatively homogeneous spending patterns. Consequently, they produced goods, services, and marketing campaigns that spoke to a ‘mass’ undifferentiated audience (Igo, 2008). Although the ads generated by this approach typically depicted only white and middle class consumers, their appeal was considered much broader than that, as everyone was thought to aspire to the same values and lifestyles (Banet-Weiser, 2012). This marketing approach promoted what might be called a ‘Keynesian’ model of consumer citizenship (Cohen, 2003). Marketers imagined an ‘average’ American consumer who was encouraged to buy more, newer, and better things in order to sustain high levels of production, provide full employment, lower prices, and thus improve the standard of living for all Americans (Patterson, 1997).

Niche or segmented marketing arose as an alternative paradigm in the 1950s and 1960s with the help of social scientists and their innovations in survey methods (Rainwater et al., 1959). In this approach, marketers developed advertising messages intended to appeal to the assumed wants and needs of particular social groups, including women, racial/ethnic minorities, and different class segments of US society. In doing so, they partly were responding to demands by marginalized groups for greater recognition in popular culture, and indeed, market segmentation allowed groups to shape markets around their own priorities (Cohen, 2003; Dávila, 2001; Frank, 1998; Sender, 2005). Thus niche marketing promotes what we might call an identity politics/civil rights model of consumer citizenship.

Today, marketers have shifted their focus from groups to individual customers. Like the shift from mass to niche marketing, this represents a categorical shift in the way marketers conceptualize society. Niche marketing relied on stereotypical images and associations that essentialized group differences based on race, ethnicity, age, class, and gender. Conversely, RMM warns against such generalizations and focuses instead on the importance of relating to consumers as idiosyncratic individuals. Using advanced internet technologies, marketers track spending and web behavior and customize their advertisements to appeal to individual consumers’ needs, wants, and desires (Taylor, 2004; Varadarajan and Yadav, 2009).

RMM is evident when consumers receive personalized mail circulars or computer pop-up ads. For instance, Target now sends advertisements for baby clothes to pregnant women – even before they announce their pregnancies! A recent New York Times magazine article (Duhigg, 2012) describes how Target’s Guest Marketing Analytics department uses data Target has been collecting for decades to assign each customer a ‘pregnancy prediction’ score. Marketers know that a precisely timed advertisement can change someone’s shopping patterns for years, and the competition to be the first to reach customers at opportune moments (such as early in a pregnancy or during other changes in the life course) is fierce. Mining data on customers’ shopping habits, age, ethnicity, job history, income, residential patterns, brand preferences, political leanings, reading habits, and marital and family status, Target’s marketers are not only able to determine a pregnancy as early as in the first trimester, but also narrow the customer’s due date to within a small window. Target is then able to send consumers individualized advertisements and coupons timed to very specific stages of a pregnancy. Since this campaign went into effect, Target’s Mom and Baby sales have reportedly exploded (Duhigg, 2012).

We call this new paradigm ‘relationship management marketing’ (RMM). ¹ In relation to previous marketing models, the three primary distinguishing features of RMM are (1) an individualized approach that identifies and caters to the firm’s most profitable customers; (2) the replacement of ‘market share’ with ‘share of the consumer’ (or ‘lifetime value’) as the measure of a firm’s success; and (3) a ‘societal orientation’ towards the relationship between social problems, consumers, and business. In the next section of the paper, we will explore each of these features in detail.

The three paradigmatic approaches to marketing are illustrated in Figure 1. Although we represent these marketing strategies as historically distinct, all three are evident in consumer culture today. Mass marketing techniques such as billboards are still widely in use, as are magazine, newspaper, and television advertisements that are targeted towards more narrowly defined niche audiences. Moreover, as we will show, not all consumers are targeted through RMM, nor are all marketing professionals equally convinced of its appeal. Nevertheless, we will argue that the textbooks in this study overwhelmingly promote RMM as the best option for marketers, firms, and society. Also, as we will show, contrasting RMM with the other marketing paradigms is a useful heuristic for identifying the underlying model of consumer citizenship promoted by marketers.

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Figure 1.

The three models of marketing.

Although we argue that each marketing era is associated with a different model of consumer citizenship, it is important to emphasize that these are models or ideal conceptualizations that have never been fully realized in practice. For instance, Robert Reich (2007) refers to the Keynesian era of consumer citizenship as the ‘not quite golden age’ of democratic capitalism because businesses were organized into oligopolies that squelched competition and innovation; the variety and quality of consumer goods were limited; and women and racial/ethnic minority men were excluded from high-paying unionized jobs. Similarly, Turow (1997) has shown how the identity politics/civil rights model of consumer citizenship reified social differences and discouraged communication between different segments of society, contributing to an increasingly fragmented vision of society. Notwithstanding the shortcomings and unintended consequences of these models of consumer citizenship, for the larger part of the 20th century they were the paradigms which guided national political debate and public policy, and thus we maintain that they are essential to understanding the political and economic trajectory of the past century (Cohen, 2003).

In the next section of the paper, we explore RMM in more detail, drawing on our content analysis of marketing textbooks.

Relationship Management Marketing (RMM)

The first defining characteristic of RMM is its highly individualized approach to identifying and appealing to a firm’s most profitable customers. As the previous Target example illustrates, technological innovations have given corporations unprecedented information about individuals’ consuming habits, personalities, and stage in the life course. With ever more precise and current information about consumers, companies are able to identify their most profitable customers and relate to them in direct and long-term ways. The textbooks enthusiastically encourage this practice For example, in Essentials of Marketing, Lamb et al. explain that the most important trend in contemporary marketing is the growth of ‘an individualized marketing method that utilizes customer information to build long-term, personalized, and profitable relationships with each customer’ (2009a: 224). In MKTG, Lamb et al. celebrate this ‘new trend in marketing’ as a ‘business strategy designed to optimize profitability, revenue, and customer satisfaction by focusing on highly defined and precise customer groups’ (2009b: 293). New technologies, they continue, have allowed companies to ‘identify customers who yield high profits or potential profits’ and ‘develop interactions that target individual consumers’ needs and wants’ (2009b: 299, original emphasis).

The textbooks by Armstrong and Kotler express a similar take on current trends in how companies select and relate to customers. For instance, Kotler and Armstrong state that the ‘fastest-growing form of marketing’ is one where companies efficiently ‘reach carefully targeted customers … to build stronger, more personal, one-to-one relationships with them’ (2006: 459). In Principles of Marketing, they explain that ‘just as companies are being more selective about which customers they choose to serve, they are serving chosen customers in a deeper, more lasting way’. ‘The new view’, the authors continue, ‘is that marketing is the science and art of finding, retaining, and growing profitable consumers’ (2006: 17). Similarly, in Marketing: The Core, Kerin et al. describe the new model as one in which firms continuously seek to satisfy consumer expectations by establishing a relationship between ‘an organization [and] its individual customers … for their mutual, long-term benefits’ (2007: 14). Managing this relationship, Kerin et al. continue, involves ‘the process of identifying prospective buyers, understanding them intimately, and developing favorable long-term perceptions of the organization and its offerings’ (2007: 17). With the exception of Perreault et al. (2008), which teaches that niche marketing is still the dominant form, the textbooks make nearly identical claims regarding the ways companies relate to and choose their customers, stressing the novel, individualized, long-term, and profitable nature of these relationships. For the most part, marketing students today are advised to take advantage of technological innovations to carefully select profitable consumers with whom they aspire to develop personalized, long-term, one-to-one relationships.

The textbooks give many examples of companies that have successfully profited from relating to their consumers as individuals. Lamb et al. reference Tesco, a British supermarket chain, which boasts the ability to produce 4 million catalogs per month, each personalized for the specific interests of its customers (2009b: 224). These authors also cite the example of British handbag and accessory designer Anya Hindmarch, who invites customers to participate in the creation of their unique handbags by providing personal photographs that become integrated into the handbag’s design (2009b: 225). Internet technologies play an important role in these changes as is evidenced by examples provided by Boone and Kurtz and Solomon et al. Boone and Kurtz attribute the massive success of online retailer Amazon.com to the company’s emphasis on catering to and building relationships with individual consumers. Amazon.com maintains these relationships by using special software that analyzes previous purchases to suggest other items individual consumers might be interested in; sending periodic emails alerting customers to new products that might be of interest to them; and welcoming customers back to the site by first name (2011: 121). Solomon et al. reference the success Salomon Smith Barney and Fidelity Investments, both financial services firms, achieved by adopting similar technologies. Bankers at these firms could now create unique marketing campaigns for each client based on that person’s life cycle (income, family situation, desired retirement age, etc.) and stay in touch by sending ‘happy anniversary’ letters (to commemorate when they became customers of the firm) and periodic invitations to update their investment objectives all in a fraction of the time it used to take to open an account (Solomon et al., 2006: 217).

The second characteristic of relationship management marketing is that ‘share of consumer’ (or a consumers’ ‘lifetime value’) has replaced ‘market share’ as the unit of measurement for a firm’s success. This shift refocuses marketers’ attention from a ‘niche’ market to the individual consumers and reinterprets interactions with customers in terms of relationships rather than transactions. Six of the textbooks make direct reference to the ‘share’ or ‘lifetime value’ of individual consumers, while it is implied in the discussion of RMM in the remaining texts. Grewal and Levy, for example, suggest that both buyers and sellers should develop a long-term relationship philosophy as it is now the lifetime profitability of the consumer – and not how much money is made during an individual transaction – that matters (2009: 15). Accordingly, a successful firm is one which gains the ‘loyalty’ (or largest share) of individual consumers, not one which earns the largest profits from any single transaction. Grewal and Levy explain that the most valuable consumers are the ‘loyal’ ones who ‘will only buy certain brands and shop at certain stores, and … include no other firms in their evoked [consideration] set’ (2009: 92). Boone and Kurtz are equally concerned with the changing nature of interaction between the firm and sellers. In RMM, Boone and Kurtz suggest, marketers need to foster loyalty and trust with their ‘high priority’ customers so as to maintain long-term relationships with them (2011: 314). If firms are successful, they continue, customers will come to ‘find comfort in brands that have become familiar through their ongoing relationships with companies’ (2011: 319), thus gaining companies a larger share of individual consumers.

Solomon et al. express a similar understanding of the ‘lifetime value of a customer’. In recent years, they explain, firms have ‘transformed the way they do business and have begun to regard consumers as partners in the transaction rather than as passive “victims”’ (2006: 13). According to Solomon et al. the goal of ‘smart companies’ is to ‘satisfy the customer over and over again so that they can build a long-term relationship rather than just having a “one night stand”’ (2006: 13). Armstrong and Kotler are equally adamant on this topic. They define a company’s ‘share of customer’ as ‘the share they get of the customer’s purchasing in their product categories’ (2005: 24). Armstrong and Kotler then praise companies that are now ‘spending less time figuring out how to increase share of market and more time trying to grow share of customer’ (2005: 24). Similarly, Kotler and Armstrong explain that the aim of RMM is to produce high customer loyalty which in turn produces high ‘customer equity’, which they define as ‘the combined discounted customer lifetime values of all of the company’s current and potential customers’ (2006: 21). Profitable individual consumers, according to this model, are ‘assets that need to be managed and maximized’ (2006: 22). Thus, the second unique characteristic of RMM is the replacement of ‘share of the consumer’ for ‘share of the market’ as the unit with which marketers measure success. Achieving and maintaining their profitable customer’s loyalty through the smart management of firm–customer relationships has consequently become a central concern for marketers.

A third unique aspect of RMM identified in the textbooks is what the marketers refer to as a ‘societal orientation’. The textbooks unanimously urge marketers to find ways of satisfying their consumers’ needs that are both profitable to firms and beneficial to society. But only one of the textbooks acknowledges that there may be a tension between a company’s and society’s interests. Perreault et al. argue that while ‘marketing managers should be concerned with social responsibility’, they should be cautious as ‘being socially responsible sometimes requires difficult trade-offs’ (2008: 23). These difficult trade-offs seem frequent enough to cause Perreault et al. to wonder whether it is even desirable for businesses to concern themselves with social issues in the first place (2008: 24). Marketing managers who believe social responsibility to be desirable, the authors continue, find themselves with the ‘problem’ of having to continuously balance ‘consumer, company, and social interests’ (2008: 24).

The nine remaining textbooks are much more sanguine about promoting a firm’s ‘societal orientation’. Lamb et al. claim, for example, that ‘smart companies’ maintain a societal orientation and are able to ‘prosper and build shareholder value by tackling global problems’ (2009a: 66). Perreault et al.’s trade-off, Lamb et al. suggest, is a ‘false dichotomy’ as socially responsible firms will not only outperform their peers by taking on the business opportunities represented by the world’s social problems, but these firms will also become highly admired and thus build shareholder value (2009a: 66–67). Solomon et al. (2006) likewise discuss societal responsibility in terms of marketers’ ‘new way of long-term thinking’. Solomon et al. describe companies’ efforts in satisfying society’s environmental and societal needs through ‘voluntarily modifying a manufacturing process to reduce pollution, and sponsoring campaigns to address social problems’ (2006: 24). These actions are understood to be investments in long-term relationships with profitable customers.

Similarly, Boone and Kurtz claim that a company’s objectives to enhance society ‘often produce such benefits as improved customer relationships, increased employee loyalty, marketplace success, and improved financial performance’ (2011: 24). Boone and Kurtz then list recent recipients of the ‘prestigious’ Committee to Encourage Corporate Philanthropy (CECP) Award ² before reminding the reader of the importance of creating loyal customers and building long-term relationships with them (2011: 26). Another example of marketing’s societal orientation can be found in Grewal and Levy’s (2009) textbook when they distinguish corporate social responsibility from corporate ethics. While corporate ethics generally have no positive impact on anyone other than the stakeholders, socially responsible activities differ in that they directly improve the communities in which companies operate. Grewal and Levy explain that companies earn both tangible and intangible benefits for acting in a socially desirable manner as ‘consumers and investors increasingly appear to want to purchase products and services from and invest in companies that act in socially responsible ways’ (2009: 47). Finally, Kerin et al. quote research showing that companies who support societal responsibilities ‘(1) benefit from favorable word-of-mouth among consumers and (2) typically outperform less responsible companies on financial performance’ (2006: 110). Kerin et al. also encourage firms to integrate marketing and social responsibility programs, in this way directly contributing to the welfare of society in general and the company’s target market in particular (2006: 109).

The textbooks highlight environmental concerns, cause marketing linked to specific social problems or diseases, and to a lesser extent cultural diversity, as examples of how the contemporary model of consumer citizenship promotes the social good. In terms of environmental marketing, Armstrong and Kotler argue that companies are ‘developing strategies that both sustain the environment and produce profits for the company’ and thus shifting their stances on environmentalism from ‘protest to prevention, and from regulation to responsibility’ (2005: 564). Similarly, in Marketing: The Core, Kerin et al. emphasize companies’ ‘voluntary responses to environmental issues’, highlighting that these are commonly implemented ‘with little or no additional cost to consumers and actually resulted in cost savings to companies’ (2007: 88). In describing ways that firms could preserve or enhance long-term social interests, Lamb et al.’s Essentials of Marketing speaks of environmentally oriented strategies such as using reusable packaging material, reducing the level of mercury in batteries, and creating biodegradable car wash products (2009a: 7). Boone and Kurtz describe firms’ interest in ecology as a reaction to consumers’ growing concern about this issue. These authors highlight how during the ‘green revolution’ of the early 1990s ‘marketers were quick to tie their companies and products to ecological themes’ and consumers ‘responded by purchasing more and more of these goods’ (2011: 102).

The marketing textbooks also highlight cause marketing as a means through which the social good is produced. Distinguishing cause marketing from corporate philanthropic donations, Kerin et al.’s Marketing: The Core describes the former as ‘a formal practice … which occurs when the charitable contributions of a firm are tied directly to the customer revenues produced through the promotion of one of its products’ (2007: 88). Kerin et al. then give examples of cause-related marketing including Procter & Gamble’s raising funds for the Special Olympics by donating a percentage of earnings from selected company products, and MasterCard’s linking usage of its card with fund raising for institutions that combat cancer, heart disease, child abuse, drug abuse, and muscular dystrophy (2007: 88). In Essentials of Marketing, Lamb et al. similarly define cause-related marketing as a mutually beneficial process through which a company’s product or services are promoted and money is raised for a nonprofit. They quote findings from several studies which ‘suggest that some consumers consider a company’s reputation when making purchasing decisions and that a company’s community involvement boosts employee morale and loyalty’ (2009a: 445). Further stressing the relevance of cause-related marketing for consumers, Boone and Kurtz quote studies which suggest that ‘92 percent of consumers had a more positive image of companies that support important social causes’ and that ‘four of five respondents said that they would change brands to support a cause if the price and quality of the two brands remained equal’ (2011: 16). Finally, in their discussion of ‘activities that have a positive effect on society and promote the public good’, Solomon et al. highlight ‘promoting environmental stewardship, engaging in cause marketing, and promoting cultural diversity’ as activities in which firms should engage (2006: 69). The authors define the promotion of cultural diversity as ‘a management practice that actively seeks to include people of different sexes, races, ethnic groups, and religions in an organization’s employees, customers, suppliers, and distribution channel partners’ (2006: 71).

Thus the third unique characteristic of RMM is the emphasis on firms’ ‘societal orientation’. Except for Perreault et al.’s Basic Marketing (2008) there is no discussion in the textbooks of the trade-offs or downsides to a firm’s behaving in socially responsible ways. The RMM model emphasizes a harmony of interests between firms, consumers, and society. Marketers today propound the belief that by taking a ‘societal orientation’ they are behaving in everyone’s best interests.

Neoliberal Consumer Citizenship

The previous section explored the key features of relationship management marketing as described by the most popular marketing textbooks. In this section we analyze the underlying model of consumer citizenship contained within RMM. As we argued in the introduction, each marketing strategy is based on a distinct model of consumer citizenship. Previous research on cause marketing has suggested a link to ‘neoliberal consumer citizenship’ (Johnston, 2008; Mukherjee and Banet-Weiser, 2012). We delve into this claim by detailing how the textbooks promoting RMM envision the ideal relationship between government, business, and consumers.

All ten textbooks agreed that the role of government in contemporary marketing should be to ensure free competition amongst firms and provide a minimum level of consumer protections from ‘misbehaving’ corporations. Two textbooks added the responsibility to protect social interests (though neither defined those interests), and one textbook argued that it was the government’s role to protect private property. Also, two textbooks spoke of ideal circumstances in which government played no regulatory role, and three textbooks gave explicit warnings regarding the pitfalls and unintended consequences of government intervention in the market.

For Boone et al., before government is forced to intervene companies have a ‘chance to shine’ by taking social responsibilities into their own hands. It is when companies are reluctant that governments ‘may require firms to take socially responsible action in matters of environmental policy, deceptive product claims, and other areas’ (2011: 100). Kotler and Armstrong similarly argue that ‘even the most liberal advocates of free-market economics agree that the system works best with at least some regulation’. A ‘well-conceived regulation’, they contend, is one which protects companies from unfair competition from each other, protects consumers from unfair business practices, and protects the interests of society against unrestrained business behavior (2006: 85–87). Grewal and Levy, too, argue that ‘since the turn of the century, the government has enacted laws that promote both fair trade and competition by prohibiting the formation of monopolies or alliances that would damage a competitive marketplace’ as well as legislation to protect consumers from false or misleading advertising practices and harmful or hazardous materials (2009: 75). In their analysis Solomon et al. likewise argue that government ‘can impose numerous regulations about what products should be made of, how they should be made, and what can be said about them’ (2006: 80).

Perreault et al. were the only authors to underscore that not only should government ensure that ‘individuals are not exploited, no group unfairly monopolizes markets, and producers deliver the kinds and quality of goods and services they claim to be offering’, but government should also try ‘to be sure that property is protected’ (2008: 13). Perreault et al. (2008) were also the only authors who attempted to give reasons for the government’s role in the economy. According to Perreault et al., governmental roles are decided on by the ‘citizen-consumers’ who voted for them. If a company’s objectives make ‘excessive demands on scarce resources or [have] an unacceptable ecological effect’, they argue, ‘then consumer-citizens have the responsibility to vote for laws restricting individual firms’ (2008: 614). However, Perreault et al. go on to warn the reader that even seemingly minor modifications in the present system might result in major unexpected changes that ‘could seriously reduce consumers’ present rights to freedom of choice, including “bad” choices’ (2008: 614). (We will discuss the implications of this in the following section.)

Thus, in terms of the ideal role of government associated with the neoliberal consumer citizenship model, the textbooks point to a government whose roles extend only as far as ensuring free competition amongst firms and a minimum level of protections for consumers. The textbooks also suggest that government intervention is a result of ‘misbehaving’ firms, and that in ideal circumstances the market would be free from government interventions.

As for the role of business in RMM, the textbooks argue that corporations have a complex role to play in the marketing system. Their primary responsibility is to design business strategies that cater to profitable consumer’s needs, wants, and desires. Nine of the textbooks (Perreault et al. [2008] being the exception) made direct reference to the notion that from a firm’s perspective not all consumers should be considered equal. As Lamb et al. explain, while every customer wants to be a company’s main priority, ‘not all customers are equally important in the eyes of a business’. Consequently, identifying the firm’s profitable and unprofitable customers becomes a central concern for the firm (2009b: 294). Likewise, Solomon et al. argue that RMM techniques allow firms to prioritize communication with certain customers. This is necessary given that, in terms of the lifetime value, ‘not all customers are equal’ (2006: 220). Solomon et al. give the example of an automated system which helped a bank decide how much effort to expend retaining certain customers. The bank found that ‘losing’ their unprofitable customers resulted in a more than 30% cut in operating costs (2006: 220).

In RMM, then, corporations are responsible for catering to their profitable consumers’ needs, wants, and desires. Meanwhile, in building the necessary relationships with their consumers, firms take on the responsibility of society’s long-term wellbeing, or, at the very least, the long-term wellbeing of their profitable consumers. As we demonstrated in the previous section, this wellbeing is understood to be achieved primarily through corporate support for environmental concerns, awareness for specific causes, and the promotion of cultural diversity.

In their understanding of consumers, the textbooks show complete uniformity. According to the textbooks, the consumers’ role is to have boundless needs, wants, and desires for which they turn to the market for fulfillment. It is assumed that consumers are seeking to fulfill their needs, wants, or desires while simultaneously maximizing the ‘value’ they receive from this fulfillment. Influenced by their culture, subculture, values, beliefs, attitudes, lifestyle, personality, life-cycle stage, age, gender, family, and social and reference groups (including class), as well as other psychological factors, the actions of consumers in the market are assumed to be rational and predictable. Moreover, consumers are expected to display a certain level of motivation towards their decision to buy or not to buy certain goods, motivations which are said to closely correlate with Maslow’s ‘hierarchy of needs’ (from the bottom up: physiological; safety; social; esteem; and self-actualization). Marketers agree that as the bottom-level needs are satisfied, consumers’ exhibit increased motivation for higher-level needs. Armstrong and Kotler, for example, suggest that ‘starving people (a physiological need) will not take an interest in the latest happenings in the art world (self-actualization needs), nor in how they are seen or esteemed by others (social or esteem needs), nor even in whether they are breathing clean air (safety needs)’ (2005: 155). Boone and Kurtz give an example from the other end of the needs-spectrum where consumers’ ‘desire[s] to realize their full potential and to fund fulfillment by expressing their unique talents and capabilities’ are catered to by firms that provide them with opportunities to ‘assist in such projects as archaeological digs or building homes for the needy’ (2011: 159).

All of the textbooks also outline the same five steps in the consumer decision-making process: need recognition; information search; evaluation of alternatives; purchase; and post-purchase. While the textbooks do highlight the various types of buying decisions and involvement levels encountered by consumers, all but those involving the least effort are assumed to follow these same steps.

Moreover, the textbooks expect that consumers will behave ethically. While this remains implicit in six of the textbooks, four speak of the ‘undesirable’ aspects of consumer behavior. In these cases, unethical consumers are chastised for ‘misbehaving’ in the marketplace. Solomon et al., for example, mention how the billions of dollars lost every year due to shoplifting and employee theft are ultimately paid for by ethical consumers (2006: 66). Perreault et al. speak of consumers abusing return policies, changing price tags, and mistreating salespeople, and call on consumers to share in the ‘responsibility for preserving an effective macro-marketing system’ (2008: 613). As a final example, Kerin et al. stress consumers’ ‘obligation to act ethically and responsibly in the exchange process and use of products’. The cost of consumers’ unethical behavior to marketers both in terms of lost sales and prevention expenses, Kerin et al. argue, is huge (2007: 90).

The idealized understanding of the consumer in the neoliberal model of consumer citizenship, then, is of one who takes their idiosyncratic social and ethical concerns into account as they fulfill their unfettered and boundless needs, wants, and desires in the marketplace. Under this model of consumer citizenship it is the role of government to ensure free competition amongst firms and a minimum level of consumer protections, of firms to design business strategies around catering to profitable consumer’s needs, wants, and desires in ways that gain the largest ‘share of the consumer’, and of consumers to take their social and environmental concerns into account as they fulfill their unfettered needs, wants, and desires and maximize their overall utility through the marketplace. This model of consumer citizenship is rightly labeled ‘neoliberal’ because of the commitment to the tenets of minimal state regulation of the economy, the idealization of the market as an organizing principle for social and political action, and the exaltation of an autonomous, self-serving subject.

Conclusion

In her study of ethical codes in economic organizations, Zelizer (2011) points out that despite the frequency with which CEOs and business schools talk about ethics, researchers have paid only scant attention to how moral and ethical questions arise and operate within economic life. This article advances our understanding of the intersections between ethics and economic activity by showing how, in marketing, morality is constituted through and is indivisible from consumerism.

Throughout the 20th century, Americans have believed that consumers striving to satisfy their personal material wants in the marketplace could enhance the general social welfare. This article has examined the contemporary iteration of this belief through a study of contemporary marketing textbooks. Through our qualitative content analysis of best-selling marketing textbooks, we have identified a new model of marketing that we refer to as relationship management marketing. RMM utilizes new computer technologies to gather data on the spending habits of profitable customers, and then customizes advertising messages to appeal to these customers. RMM represents a departure from both mass and niche marketing, as marketers increasingly direct their appeals to individuals. A firm’s ability to sustain loyal relationships with its most profitable customers has emerged as a pillar of contemporary marketing strategy. Firms solidify their relationships with those consumers by supporting the socially relevant practices and causes that are important to them. In this way, advocates of RMM claim to promote the social good. With one exception, the textbook authors erase any tensions between society’s best interests and firms’ ‘bottom line’.

Like the previous models of marketing, RMM is based upon and promotes a specific vision of consumer citizenship, defined as the ideal relationship between government, business, and consumers. RMM promotes a limited role for government: to ensure free competition amongst firms and a minimum level of consumer protections. RMM exhorts businesses to cater to their profitable individual consumer’s needs, wants, and desires in ways that most resonate with those consumers’ social concerns. And consumers are expected to take their societal and environmental concerns into account as they fulfill their needs, wants, and desires in the marketplace. The textbooks suggest that the ethical concerns of profitable customers stem from individuals’ ‘self-actualization needs’, which are triggered once ‘lower-level’ needs (such as safety and nutrition) are met. Thus cause marketing should target the most socially advantaged and wealthy consumers. Proponents of RMM believe that when government, business, and consumers conform to their appropriate roles, the best interests of society will be served.

Only one of the textbooks in our sample propounds an alternative model of consumer citizenship. Perreault et al. (2008), who embrace the niche marketing approach, claim that the market is unable to address all social problems, including homelessness and discrimination. Although Perreault et al. argue that these social problems are not the responsibility (or fault) of business, they maintain that important social questions such as these should be addressed only by a democratically elected government. In contrast, the neoliberal model of consumer citizenship promoted by RMM provides no room for the discussion of a larger social good outside of the idiosyncratic concerns of profitable consumers. In other words, from this marketing perspective, only the concerns of profitable consumers can and should be addressed, and only businesses are equipped to address these concerns. Government’s role is limited to maintaining the economic environment where firms are able to engage in competition for profitable customers.

Compared to previous models of consumer citizenship, RMM and the neoliberal model of consumer citizenship represent a highly individualized and idiosyncratic understanding of morality and the social good. In contrast, mass marketing and the Keynesian model of consumer citizenship encouraged mass consumption by all Americans in an effort to sustain high levels of production, provide full employment, lower consumer prices, and improve the general standard of living. Niche marketing and the identity politics/civil rights model of consumer citizenship shifted marketing’s focus from all Americans to targeted groups. Marketers believed that tailoring their messages for distinct racial, ethnic, gender, and class segments would generate both higher profits and customer satisfaction, as well as affording recognition to marginalized groups (Cohen, 2003). Today, RMM and the neoliberal model of consumer citizenship have shifted marketing’s focus from targeted groups to idiosyncratic ‘profitable’ consumers. Ethics and morality, in this model, have become the purview of wealthy individuals.

This neoliberal model of consumer citizenship has potentially disastrous implications for a democratic society. Because businesses privilege the social concerns of wealthy and elite consumers, society will never address issues such as stable employment, living wages, and universal health care. Under the regime of neoliberal consumer citizenship, these issues can enter the public agenda only if they become the concerns of profitable customers, which is unlikely granted their privileged position in a class stratified society.

To illustrate this, consider the example of corporate support for the breast cancer movement. Corporations of many kinds have joined the Koman foundation, which aims to combat breast cancer, putting pink ribbons on everything from Cheerios to NFL players. These philanthropic efforts may have provided many poor and uninsured women with more reliable access to breast cancer screening. But, as Samantha King (2006) points out, these women still lack access to treatment after diagnosis. We suggest that treatment is an issue that is not – and indeed cannot – be addressed through RMM, unless ‘profitable’ consumers demand such access for their ‘less profitable’ sisters (see also Castañeda, 2012). Thus, even though the textbooks claim that companies simply respond to preexisting political, social, and ecological concerns of their customers, we argue that they ultimately determine which causes to endorse and how to endorse them.

Our study of RMM and neoliberal consumer citizenship raises important questions for future research. Given that the neoliberal marketplace assigns each individual a particular ‘value’, the fate of the unprofitable consumer becomes an imperative area for research. Whose consumer needs and desires are ignored by the current marketing approach? Studies are also needed on how the hyper-individualization of neoliberal consumer citizenship impacts group cohesion and class, race, and gender solidarities. How, for example, might concepts such as linked fate or class or occupational solidarities survive in a society of neoliberal consumer citizens? Additional studies are also needed to explore the implications of neoliberal consumer citizenship for social movement activism. As political action is increasingly routed through individual choices in the marketplace, developments in collective action and activism would certainly be affected and probably undermined (Mukherjee and Banet-Weiser, 2012).

In conclusion, we argue that marketing textbooks should describe alternative models of consumer citizenship. Our study has revealed the profoundly ideological foundation of current marketing practices. Marketing textbooks today misrepresent reality and inculcate college students into the principles and practices of neoliberalism. Our discussion of neoliberal consumer citizenship has questioned marketers’ claims that the interests of profitable consumers align with – and even advance – the interests of society. As a first step to developing an alternative and genuinely ethical model of consumer citizenship, the ideological function of neoliberal consumer citizenship must be recognized. Beyond taking that step, we do not have a clear definition of what that alternative would look like, but we can nevertheless hint at what some of its basic components might be.

First, textbooks must recognize the narrow range and appeal of societal issues addressed by RMM, as well as the inability of corporations to provide solutions to most social problems that go beyond raising awareness. To promote an alternative model of consumer citizenship, marketers should reassess the claim that society’s interests and firms’ ‘bottom lines’ are always compatible. As is evidenced by the examples given in the textbooks, in some instances society’s welfare and a firms’ financial interest may exist congruously. However, in many other instances a firm’s economically feasible options for addressing societal issues will be limited to hollow gestures. Moreover, pressing societal issues not considered relevant by a firm’s profitable consumers may be ignored altogether. While it is not necessary that marketers and private enterprise be charged with solving all society’s problems, they would do well to acknowledge their limitations. Marketers could continue to embrace the technological developments which have made RMM possible and employ cause-related marketing as a means of relating to consumers without implying that all social problems can or should be addressed through these methods.

Second, in place of strategies that rely on individuals, textbooks should teach a model of consumer citizenship that stresses the role of consumers’ collective action and identity in promoting social change. Since the 18th century, consumer collectives have embraced the market as a platform from which to launch political and cultural projects to promote equal access, social justice, and community building (Mukherjee and Banet-Weiser, 2012). Today, however, consumers who want to effect social change through their consumption are encouraged to act alone and through predetermined channels. To begin to solve this, consumers would have to recognize their collective interests in many of the social problems that marketers are claiming to address, and marketers would have to develop ways of addressing consumers as collectives.

Throughout the 20th century consumer collectives have found that their pursuit of social justice was best realized through alliances with labor unions (Cohen, 2003). Similarly, an alternative model of consumer citizenship would emphasize the working conditions that went into producing and selling the items being sold. While most firms’ profitable consumers will likely not be of the same socioeconomic status as the workers serving them, most consumers will be indirectly affected by the precarious conditions of low wage service or manufacturing jobs (Zabin et al., 2004). While such a change in the content of marketing textbooks is unlikely, to overlook the shared fate of consumers and workers in the modern economy will remain a major barrier to developing an alternative model of consumer citizenship.

Finally, much of the marketing that the textbooks encourage is premised on exclusion. Marketers and corporations are encouraged to speak only to those consumers they have already identified as profitable. The technology that makes RMM possible makes reaching an increasingly narrow segment of the population easier than ever. Unless marketers take measures to identify the biases that go in to how they define their profitable consumers, they will unwittingly be carrying on the legacy of shopping as a means to reinforce racial, class, and gender segregation in society (Cohen, 2003; Williams, 2006). An alternative model of consumer citizenship would take this history into account and deliberately search for ways to create advertising and retail settings that are as inclusive as possible.

Can such a vision of ‘ethical consumerism’ become a reality? Is it truly possible to ‘consume for the social good’? We certainly hope so. However, the current model of consumer citizenship promulgated in business schools undermines the pursuit of this goal. As long as corporations have the upper hand in deciding which consumers – and hence which causes – to support, the best interests of society as a whole will not be served. To effectively merge consumerism and citizenship will require a new conception of the social good, and a new balance of power between consumers, business, and government.