TY - JOUR
T1 - Social negative option marketing
T2 - A partial response to one of spotswood, French, tapp and stead’s (2012) “uncomfortable questions”
AU - Von Bergen, C. W.
AU - Miles, Morgan P.
N1 - Includes bibliographical references.
PY - 2015/4/13
Y1 - 2015/4/13
N2 - Purpose – The purpose of this paper was to address one of Spotswood et al.’s (2012) “uncomfortable questions”. The paper applies negative option marketing, the use of defaults as a behavioral engineering tool to shape choice, to social marketing and then uses the Hunt-Vitell (1986, 1993, 2006) Theory of Marketing Ethics to evaluate it against President Kennedy’s (1962) Consumer Bill of Rights and the American Marketing Association’s (2014) statement of marketing ethics. Design/methodology/approach – A conceptual assessment of the ethics of negative option social marketing (NOSM) using the Hunt-Vitell (1986, 1993, 2006) Theory of Marketing Ethics as the evaluative framework. Findings – When assessed using the Hunt-Vitell (1986, 1993, 2006) Theory of Marketing Ethics, NOSM possesses neither ethically sound means nor socially desirable ends. Originality/value – This paper contributes to the emerging debate on the use of nudges in a social marketing context and is a partial response to Spotswood et al. (2012).
AB - Purpose – The purpose of this paper was to address one of Spotswood et al.’s (2012) “uncomfortable questions”. The paper applies negative option marketing, the use of defaults as a behavioral engineering tool to shape choice, to social marketing and then uses the Hunt-Vitell (1986, 1993, 2006) Theory of Marketing Ethics to evaluate it against President Kennedy’s (1962) Consumer Bill of Rights and the American Marketing Association’s (2014) statement of marketing ethics. Design/methodology/approach – A conceptual assessment of the ethics of negative option social marketing (NOSM) using the Hunt-Vitell (1986, 1993, 2006) Theory of Marketing Ethics as the evaluative framework. Findings – When assessed using the Hunt-Vitell (1986, 1993, 2006) Theory of Marketing Ethics, NOSM possesses neither ethically sound means nor socially desirable ends. Originality/value – This paper contributes to the emerging debate on the use of nudges in a social marketing context and is a partial response to Spotswood et al. (2012).
KW - Defaults as behavioral engineering tools
KW - Ethics of marketing
KW - Marketing
KW - Message framing
KW - Negative option marketing
KW - Use of nudges in social marketing
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UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84928532110&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1108/JSOCM-06-2014-0036
DO - 10.1108/JSOCM-06-2014-0036
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84928532110
SN - 2042-6763
VL - 5
SP - 125
EP - 138
JO - Journal of Social Marketing
JF - Journal of Social Marketing
IS - 2
ER -