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Cause-Related Marketing: Ethics and the Ecstatic

Cause-Related Marketing: Ethics and the Ecstatic This article evaluates the ethical implications of the practice of cause-related marketing (CRM). The authors note howCRMis consistent with a contemporary rhetoric that argues that consumers are displaying a developing interest in the social commitments of the corporate world. However, following the work of Zygmunt Bauman, the authors suggest that CRM actually threatens these sentiments. Of particular significance is its incorporation of a charitable act within an act of exchange that is mediated by marketing technique. This serves to prevent any encounter with Bauman’s “Other.” Instead, the pretense of engagement has to be preserved by increasingly vociferous avowals of concern. These become examples of the ecstatic, a seductive force that renders the extreme meaningless and amoral. Finally, the authors argue that the nature of ethical commitment produced by CRM cannot be divorced from the instrumental benefits that are generated. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Business & Society: Founded at Roosevelt University SAGE

Cause-Related Marketing: Ethics and the Ecstatic

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References (36)

Publisher
SAGE
Copyright
Copyright © by SAGE Publications
ISSN
0007-6503
eISSN
1552-4205
DOI
10.1177/000765030003900304
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

This article evaluates the ethical implications of the practice of cause-related marketing (CRM). The authors note howCRMis consistent with a contemporary rhetoric that argues that consumers are displaying a developing interest in the social commitments of the corporate world. However, following the work of Zygmunt Bauman, the authors suggest that CRM actually threatens these sentiments. Of particular significance is its incorporation of a charitable act within an act of exchange that is mediated by marketing technique. This serves to prevent any encounter with Bauman’s “Other.” Instead, the pretense of engagement has to be preserved by increasingly vociferous avowals of concern. These become examples of the ecstatic, a seductive force that renders the extreme meaningless and amoral. Finally, the authors argue that the nature of ethical commitment produced by CRM cannot be divorced from the instrumental benefits that are generated.

Journal

Business & Society: Founded at Roosevelt University – SAGE

Published: Sep 1, 2000

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