Sustainable Marketing?

The concept of sustainable marketing is centered on the idea of sustainability. Sustainability means taking responsible actions towards the environment to best serve current generations and future generations. Sustainable marketing is socially and environmentally responsible marketing that meets the present needs of consumers and businesses while also preserving or enhancing the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

However, the core ideas of marketing consumer products and sustainability may be contradicting ideas. Is it possible to have sustainable marketing? One if the main ideas of sustainability is that we need to consume less. And one of the main goals of marketing is to get people to consume more. Can the two concepts work together? While sustainable marketing and the strategic marketing concepts recognize the importance of the future generations, how do they actually plan on implementing these into their marketing plans and into their products that they plan on releasing?

I think that one of the answers to these questions is what product the company is marketing. A company cannot release an honest sustainable marketing campaign for an SUV. Just like a plastic water bottle company can’t release an honest sustainable marketing campaign, because neither of these products are sustainable. But a bike company and a reusable water bottle company could definitely have a sustainable marketing campaign.

Another reason that makes companies and their products “unsustainable” is something called planned obsolescence. What this means is that a product becomes obsolete before they actually need replacement. Some producers are accused of using materials that won’t last very long. This makes for a very unsustainable product. In class we talked about how breakable phones are today- and how we are constantly needing to replace our iPhones. We also talked about the potential for a new product to be released called the PhoneBlock. This product would last much longer than the traditional cell phone, and would be much more sustainable.

The marketing industry has also been accused of creating too much materialism and adding false wants. This also contradicts one of the core ideas of sustainability, which is that we need to consume less. We’ve created a society in which our material needs cannot be satisfied. This is extremely unsustainable. It would be interesting if there was a way that marketing could reverse this trend. If they could somehow market the message to use less, and reduce what we consume. Marketing this message alongside sustainable products built to last would be a much smarter plan for the future.

There are a few other “evils” that the marketing system has been accused of adding to. They’ve been accused of deceptive pricing, deceptive promotion, and deceptive packaging. They also have been accused of promoting negative messages in society. Particularly with body image issues.

Responsible marketing can be beneficial to consumers, companies and society as a whole. Hopefully this can be one more way to cut our environmental footprint and make our world a better place to live in. Clearly marketing is a very influential tool and it makes sense to use it to our societies advantage.