Social Responsibility, Consumerism, and the Marketing Concept

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY, CONSUMERISM, AND
THE MARKETING CONCEPT
Robert D. Winsor, Loyola Marymount University
ABSTRACT
This paper compares the often-criticized "selling orientation" or "selling concept" with the commonly-praised "societal marketing concept "from the perspectives of consumer rationality and persuasibility. It is suggested that both orientations view consumers as relatively irrational and as easily prone to manipulation by marketers. The implications of this similarity are explored from the perspectives of consumerism and social responsibility. INTRODUCTION
Critics of marketing have consistently attacked the discipline for discounting consumers ' intelligence and capacity for rational choice and for deliberately confounding consumers in their efforts to make rational, informed, unbiased, and free economic choices. At the same time, societal trends have pushed U.S. businesses in the direction of increasing concern for social issues and attention to long-run consumer welfare. The aforementioned criticisms and pressures for increasing social responsibility are largely driven by the same social paradigms and constituents. Yet, it is noteworthy that the ultimate result of an expanded social responsibility of business is the concomitant diminishment of free consumer choice. Moreover, this obstruction of consumer discretion is the inevitable consequence of presumptions of consumer irrationality.
Thus, while groups such as consumerists have often criticized marketers explicitly for rejecting notions of consumer rationality, these same groups and sentiments have forcefully promoted the social responsibility of business and the societal marketing concept as advancements in business thought and practice. As a result, contradictions can be seen to exist within the consumerist agenda, and are apparent (but unacknowledged) in the "societal marketing concept" and calls for increasing the responsibility of business toward social issues and

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