In a capitalist society, each company primarily defends its economic interests and chases profit. Nevertheless, in recent years, socially responsible marketing has become increasingly popular - a new type of entrepreneurial thinking, which involves a careful and attentive attitude to the world around us.
New entrepreneurial thinking
In accordance with the traditional view, the enterprise pursues personal selfish goals in its activities, neglecting the interests of society. Guided by this philosophy, the company seeks to increase sales and, consequently, its own profit at any cost. However, history has shown how destructive such a philosophy can be. Overproduction, economic and energy crises, environmental degradation, unemployment, and other negative phenomena are some of the consequences of companies' irresponsible attitude to their activities.
Now this approach is hopelessly outdated, which has given impetus to the development of new commercial thinking. Entrepreneur Indra Nooyi, one of the most famous ideologues and theorists of ethical entrepreneurial thinking, expressed the main idea of socially responsible marketing in this way: "Society gives a company permission to work, so every company owes a debt to society and is obliged to take care of its welfare." The hallmark of this approach is the use of marketing tools not only to increase profits and sales, but also to improve the lives of individuals and society as a whole.
The term socially responsible, or socially ethical, marketing appeared over 40 years ago. Initially, they were used to designate the philosophy of companies that use the authority of their brand in order to popularize certain values in society, for example, a healthy lifestyle or respect for nature. In the modern sense, socially responsible marketing implies an attentive attitude of the enterprise not only to its internal problems, but also to the interests of the whole society.
The company can implement this principle in a variety of ways: sponsorship of educational and humanitarian projects, the use of environmentally friendly materials and technologies in the production, purchase of raw materials at prices that are comfortable for the supplier.
Make money making the world a better place
What is the difference between socially responsible marketing and, for example, charity? The fact that the company not only does a good deed, but also advertises itself through it. Moreover, practice shows that the effectiveness of such advertising is much higher than its traditional forms, because modern people have learned to ignore numerous advertising boards, television spots and commercial brochures.
So, for decades, the largest American corporations have fought for the right to launch their ads during the broadcast of the Super Cup final. One such economic giant was Pepsi. However, in 2010, the world famous soda maker revised its advertising policy. Rather than paying millions of dollars for mere seconds of advertising time, the company decided to spend that money on the Pepsi Refresh Project, a charity project.
The essence of the project was as follows: the company allocated several grants ranging from $ 50,000 to $ 250,000. Anyone could get the coveted money. All they had to do was go to the Pepsi website and indicate what kind of good deed they were planning to spend the won grant on. Moreover, ordinary users chose the winner by voting on the site.
Leading American publications were discouraged by this marketing ploy, claiming that "Pepsi has deserted from the Super Bowl."However, soon the same publications had to be surprised at the dizzying success achieved by the Pepsi Refresh Project: the project's page on the Internet received a record number of views, and, according to the company's management, there were "more votes than in the presidential elections."
In this way, Pepsi has proven that doing good is not only beneficial for society, but also profitable for the company. Every year more and more companies are changing their philosophy towards greater social responsibility, providing support to charitable foundations, taking care of the environmental friendliness of their own products and the process of their production, etc.
