When Social Marketing Goes Bad A Critical Review of the Food Industry Accord

1
When Social Marketing Goes Bad? A Critical
Review of the Food Industry Accord

• Janet Hoek and Ninya Maubach
• Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

2
Overview

• Background
• Objectives of social marketing
• Use of social marketing by commercial companies
• Objectives of the Food Industry Accord (FIA)
• Evaluation of Food Industry Group (FIG) reports
• Furthering social or commercial objectives??
• Conclusions and policy implications

3
Objectives of Social Marketing

• Use of marketing to promote behaviour change that
  produces better health and social outcomes
• the use of marketing principles and techniques
  to influence a target audience to voluntarily
  accept, reject, modify, or abandon a behaviour
  for the benefit of individuals, groups or society
  as a whole. (Kotler et al, 2002)
• Typically undertaken by government and NGOs

4
So, Whats Changing??

• Commercial companies turning to social marketing
  as a means of demonstrating corporate social
  responsibility
• BUT
• To what extent can commercial and social
  objectives co-exist?
• Are there lessons from tobacco to be learned?
• Can CSR divert attention away from other
  interventions?

5
What has Tobacco Taught Us??

• Recent review of BATs CSR provides useful model
  (Thomson, 2005)
• Analysed CSR report using linguistic framework
  (Shuy, 2003)
• Shuy (2003) reviewed Philip Morris use of
• The mitigated mea culpa strategy
• The good intentions strategy
• The shift the blame strategy
• The we do good things' strategy
• The minimise the problem strategy

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What Does the FIA Promise??

• do all that is possible to encourage all
  sectors of the food industry to create
  commercially successful products and services
  that will make a positive contribution to the
  health of New Zealanders. (Food Industry Accord,
  2004)
• Key Points
• Commercial imperative drives accord
• Focus on altering supply, not demand, activities
• Generation of new products
• Not moderation of marketing activities

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Application to FIG Mitigated mea culpa Strategy

• FIA described as
• a commitment from industry that it needs to be
  part of the solution and should not be regarded
  as the primary cause of the problem. (FIG,
  2005, p.4)
• Describes obesity as a problem once
• BUT does not concede role played by industry
• Typically refers to obesity as an issue (12
  times)
• Allows industry to gain credit for proposing
  solutions without acknowledging role in
  contributing to problem

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Application to FIG Good Intentions Strategy

• The FIA will make a significant contribution to
  increased consumption of nutritious foods and
  higher levels of physical activity. (FIG, 2005,
  p. 7)
• Aims to
• Raise awareness
• Encourage industry to consider new options and
  FIA
• Build partnerships
• Be positive (in the face of radical challenge)
• Communicate successes (FIG, 2005, p. 4)

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Application to FIG Good Intentions Strategy

• Strategy enables
• Recognition of good motives (even if actions bad
  or likely to be ineffective)
• Terms used are vague and ambiguous
• Hard to be held to account
• Sounds positive and pro-active
• But what does it really mean?

10
Application to FIG Shift the Blame Strategy

• Over-emphasis on industry our work, and
  attitudes of policy makers, has placed too much
  focus and expectation on the responsibility and
  role of industry with scant regard for the more
  significant factors. (FIG, 2006, p.5)
• More significant factors held to be
• Individuals management of personal lifestyle
  choices (FIG, 2006, p.9)
• Obesity also held to be
• a complex issue caused by many factors such as
  individual food choice, total calories consumed,
  parental and peer influence, lack of nutritional
  education and lack of physical activity (FIG, 7
  July, 2006)

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Application to FIG Shift the Blame Strategy

• Obesity will be addressed by
• Work required in public education and health
  environments (FIG, 2006, p. 9)
• Strategy
• Moves attention away from industry
• Responsibility lies with individuals
• To take control of their behaviour
• Health officials
• To educate and inform

12
Application to FIG We do Good Things' Strategy

• We are confident that the New Zealand FIA is an
  internationally unique initiative. (FIG, 2005,
  p. 8)
• Nowhere in the world has the issue of obesity
  been solved. New Zealand is on the leading edge,
  being the only nation where industry has formally
  committed to doing its part and has struck an
  accord for a public-private partnership with
  government. (FIG, 2006, p.5)

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Application to FIG We do Good Things' Strategy

• How does this strategy work?
• Self-generated descriptions and heavily loaded
  expressions inflate FIA status
• No specific undertakings or performative promises
• Promises to
• Discuss issue
• Talk with others
• Heavy use of existential language
• Vague and lofty terms low cost PR (Shuy,
  2003)
• Onus remains on individuals to change, not
  industry

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Application to FIG Minimise the Problem Strategy

• Obesity a
• dominating issue (FIG, 2006, p. 8)
• BUT
• No discussion of consequences of obesity
• Dealt with in an intangible manner
• Emphasis on increasing choice and awareness (FIG,
  2006, p.4)
• Not on restraining industry activities

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Public Health cf. FIG Perspective
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Implications

• Argument not that
• FIG doing nothing
• Though value of many activities questionable
• Nor that
• Use of linguistic strategies immoral
• Image control a widely used strategy
• Rather that
• Language, actions, claims and propositions
  require critical scrutiny

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Conclusions

• Social marketing can be used as a veneer
• Gives impression of change and progress
• Critically important to examine specific actions
• Concrete language cf. abstract ambiguities
• Shuy describes use of strategies as deceptive
• Timely warning that social marketing and CSR do
  not always serve social or public health
  interests

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Is the FIA Achieving More Than This?