Marketing Makes A Positive Contribution: Consumers

Introduction

Marketing makes a positive contribution to the common goods and marketers are serious about environmental stewardship (Fisher, Campbell and Svendsen 2012). Common goods are those goods that are intangible in nature and non excludable in nature. These goods are based on some of the criteria as if whether the consumption of the goods are done by a particular individual prevents other individuals for consuming it or not. This particular criterion defines the rivalry between the individuals for the consumption of the good (Connolly et al. 2013). When a person consumes the good, the other person should not be stopped from acquiring that good. The second criterion for common good is that they should be non excludable. It checks that if it is possible to preclude all the consumers to access the goods, even if they have not paid for the good. The best examples of common goods are air and water. The environmental stewardship is the dutiful utilization and protection of the natural environment by sustainable and conservation practices. Environmental stewardship is usually practiced or utilized by all individuals and organizations (Demarche et al. 2012). It is the responsibility of all organizations to maintain the environmental stewardship with their products. Marketing of any organization plays, the most important role in the positive contribution to the common good and marketers should be extremely serious about environmental stewardship.

The following report outlines a brief discussion on the basic concept of common goods and environmental stewardship. The report helps to understand the economic, ethical and legal issues or problems that have a serious impact on the marketing in addressing the common good and environmental stewardship (Berliner and Prakash 2013). The report provides various examples with proper justifications. The description of the above discussion is provided in the following paragraphs.

Discussion

Economic Issues

The economic issues or the problems can be defined as the basic problems that are related to the finite resources of an economy. When these resources are not enough or are insufficient in nature for satisfying all the requirements and needs of a human being, the situation is claimed economic issue or economic problem (Barrage, Chyn and Hastings 2014). There are three distinct questions that are to be answered for any economic problem. These questions include what should be produced, how can be produced and from whom it can be produced. These economic issues have a major impact on three common goods and environmental stewardship. There are several examples for such cases. The recognized chain of hotels namely, the Hyatt Regency strongly follows the utilization of common good environmental stewardship (Sison and Fontrodona 2012). They believe that environmental stewardship should be maintained by all organizations and businesses to keep the balance of the eco system and common goods. They have undertaken several measures for their actions. The main actions undertaken by Hyatt Regency to maintain the environmental stewardship include the utilization of resources thoughtfully, reducing the energy utilization and emission of greenhouse gases, reduction in the utilization and wastage of water, tackling the waste, focusing on the food waste. They have started to build a culture of environmental stewardship (Donati 2012). Moreover, the main benefit of Hyatt Regency is that they are working together for maintaining environmental stewardship from their business. However, there are several economic issues or problems in maintaining this stewardship. These economic issues have a strong impact on the common goods and environmental stewardship. For any organization, the economic issues have an impact on the marketing (King 2014). The main economic issues or problems that arise due to common good and environmental stewardship in any organization are as follows:

1. i) Excess Resources: The resources that are utilized for maintaining the environmental stewardship are required in excess amount (Dasgupta and Ramanathan 2014). These resources are extremely needed or required for the maintenance of environmental stewardship. For example, the utilization of resources thoughtfully, reducing the energy utilization and emission of greenhouse gases, reduction in the utilization and wastage of water, tackling the waste, focusing on the food waste are done with proper measures. They cannot be done without proper resources (King 2014). These resources are expensive and thus can affect the economic balance of the organization.
2. ii) Time: This is another most important resource utilized for the maintenance of common good and environmental stewardship. The implementation or maintenance of the excess resources in any organization or business requires time (Carroll 2014). Time is the most important resource for any organization. If time is wasted in organization, it will directly affect the economic state of that organization.

            The economic factors that affect the business or organization are as follows:

1. i) Consumer Confidence: This is the most important issue in economic sector. The confidence of the consumers is the most significant indicator of economy, which evaluates the overall optimism of consumers about the state of the economy (Welchman 2012). The consumers, who are confident, have the tendency to be extremely willing to spend the money than those consumers, who have lower confidence. It means the businesses are more likely to flourish when confidence of the consumers is high. 
2. ii) Employment: The economy has the tendency to follow a specific cycle of business of the booms of economy, which are further followed by the period of decline and period of stagnation. During the periods of boom, jobs are tending to be affluent, since the companies require employees to keep up with the demand (Carroll 2014). When the unemployment rate is lower, the tends towards consumer spending are extremely high as most of the people have the income to spend, which is good for businesses and also help to drive growth. 

Interest Rates: The interest rates are the amounts, which a lender charges a particular business or an individual for borrowing money. Some of the small businesses mostly rely on the loans from several financial institutions or banks as the main source of finance (Dasgupta and Ramanathan 2014). The high interest rates usually end in the higher total business expenses for companies with debt. High interest rates can also reduce consumer spending, because high rates make it more expensive for consumers to take out loans to buy things like cars and homes.

1. iv) Inflation: The rate at which the economy rises or increases in known as inflation. Inflation causes the increment in the expenses of business like the utilities, rent and the expenses of materials utilized in production (Johnson 2013). The rising costs are likely to force the businesses for incrementing the prices on their own services and the products for keeping the speed with inflation and to maintain profits. Inflation can mitigate the power of purchasing for the consumers unless the employers increment the wages on the basis on the level of inflation.

Thus, it can be said that the economic issues have a strong impact on marketing in a business or organization.

Legal Issues

The legal issues or problems are the second most important issues for marketing in any business or organization. The main issues in marketing are as follows:

1. i) Illegal Data Collection: This is the most important issue in any marketing campaign. If the data that is collected for the marketing campaign is illegal, the entire marketing campaign turns out to be illegal. This wrong or illegal collection of data often can turn out to be a major problem for the organization (King 2014). Thus, it is the most important step or issue for the legal sector of marketing. The most important and essential data will include information about age, demographic, spending habits, and interests. The famous and the leading marketers like Google and Facebook have become much popular due to the appropriate collection of data.
2. ii) Illegal Distribution of Data: This is the second most important legal issue in case of .an organization (Dasgupta and Ramanathan 2014). If the data will be distributed illegally, the entire process of the organization will be considered as illegal. This illegal distribution of data is dangerous and illegal for the environment.

Misleading Claims: Misleading claims in advertising may involve claims about the quality of the product, the availability of a service and any exclusion on a common good (Sison and Fontrodona 2013). This misleading of claims is even dangerous and illegal for the environment.

The above mentioned issues or problems clearly define that the legal issues have a strong impact on marketing and marketers.

Ethical Issues

Ethical issues are nothing but the problems in ethical path undertaken by a particular organization or marketer (King 2014). The ethical issues have an extremely strong impact on marketing. The ethical issues are as follows:

1. i) Grouping the Market Audience: Any type of unethical practices in marketing normally result in the grouping the market audience into several segments. Selective marketingmay be utilized for discouraging the explicit demand arising from the specific market segments that are undesirable or to deprive them completely (Krasny et al. 2012). The main examples of unethical market exclusion usually include the industry attitudes towards the plus size audience and ethnic minority.
2. ii) Ethics in Advertising and Promotion: The main point of discussion in the ethical issues in advertising content is the gender. Another important issue is ethics for marketing is violence in advertising, especially where the children should not be affected by the content (Romolini, Grove and Locke 2013). A negative advertising policy allows the specific advertiser to highlight the several disadvantages of the products of the competitors rather than displaying the evident benefits of their own services or products. These types of policies are rampant in political advertising.

Anti-Competitive Practices: The various approaches are anti-competitive (Melville, Bartley and Weinburgh 2012). For example, switch and bait is a particular type of fraud where the customers are lured or baited through the advertisements for some products or services that have a low price; however, the customers find in reality that the advertised good is unavailable and they are switched towards a product that is costlier and was not intended in the advertisements. The second type of anti competitive policy is planned obsolescence. It is the approach of designing a specific product that has a limited useful life (Fisher, Campbell and Svendsen 2012). It will become non-functional or out of fashion after a certain period and thereby lets the consumer to purchase another product again.

The above mentioned issues are problems are the main ethical issues in case of marketing addressing to common good and environmental stewardship.

Conclusion

Therefore, from the above discussion it can be concluded that, marketing of any organization plays, the most important role in the optimistic involvement to the general goods and marketers should be extremely serious about environmental stewardship. Common goods are those particular type of goods, which are non excludable and non tangible in nature. These types of common goods are checked on some of the basic criteria to check whether their consumption done by any particular individual is preventing the other individuals from consumption or not. The criterion normally checks, whether there is a possibility for precluding the various consumers from accessing the goods or not. This criterion is checked even after the good is not purchased. The most relevant examples of the common goods are water and air. The dutiful protection and usage of the environment by practices that are conservative and sustainable. The maintenance of environmental stewardship is the basic responsibility of every organization with their services and products. The above report has provided a brief description on the basic concept of common goods and environmental stewardship. The report has also helped in understanding the various legal, economic and ethical problems and issues, which have the  most dangerous impact on the marketing for addressing the environmental stewardship and common good. The report has also provided several examples with relevant justifications. The report has thus clearly proved the statement that marketing makes a positive contribution to the common goods and marketers are serious about environmental stewardship.

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