Ethical Consumption:

Or paradox of capitalism?

Ethical consumption: Ethical production (?)

Good consumer: Consumes less or consumes more?

Good producer: produces less or more?

It is not the quantity which is considered overtly but the quality

• http://clients.world-television.com/BP_Olympics/20120417/index.html

• http://www.sustainability.com/library/the-2012-sustainability-leaders#.T48Ot5j9Ry0

Ethical consumption/production

• No waste• Ecology• Fair trade• Green movements• Ethnic issues• Environment• Community• Equal rights

• Dove: be yourself, natural beauty no animal testing

• BodyShop: be fair and support ethnic producers.

• Oxfam: support Fair Trade (Sainsbury’s Waitrose).

• Street car: ecology• BP: environment (!)

Social issues at the core...of marketing

• we cannot live without human relationships and shared emotions; they are at the centre of our everyday life and therefore orient our research on Societing.

• Societing has been defined as (Badot et al., 1993, p. 51) as "a socially relevant perspective of the marketing, design and R&D interface". In a societing approach "the company is not only a simple economic actor adapting to the market, but a social actor relating to the societal context" (Badot et al., 1993, p. 51).

Who is a producer and who is a consumer? Cova

• This movement pushes companies outside the market sphere and involves them in societal efforts.

• To be intimate with tribal enthusiasts requires the firm to act as a voluntary organisation.

• In fact, we are not so sure that there is only one move: the invasion of the societal sphere by the market sphere.

• There may well be a reverse move: the invasion of the market sphere by the societal sphere.

• More and more tribes of enthusiasts want to play a part in the firm’s decisions that concern their object of passion.

• And this phenomenon is likely to take a new and larger shape with the development of the Internet.

• Societing is an approach which is willing to establish mutually beneficial compromises between market and society rather than an approach that targets the colonisation of one by the other, or the enclavisation of one versus the other.

• Where are the borders?

Symbolic meaning/value• Creating a sense of emotional/ personal/social benefit from your brand.

• Using coherent symbols & icons (advertising, logo, promotional events)

• Offering a distinguished experience to costumers.

• Creating a sense of real engagement with political and social issues

What’s behind• http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/forests/video-buying-congo-timber-beer-and-soap-20100913

• http://www.mcspotlight.org/beyond/companies/bodyshop.html

• timber for industry

• JustMeans Facebook• http://www.facebook.com/pages/New-York-NY/JustMeans/37183836043

• http://www.mcspotlight.org/help.html

The Jefferson Tree: independent intellectual website http://www.thejeffersontree.com/?p=2267

The relation of producers and consumers

• Mature capitalism has brought a shift of power and enabled consumers to have a voice.

• Boycotts• Guerrilla advertising• Demonstrations• Internet groups• Indi-film and events

Counterconsumption• Critique of capitalism• Supporting Marxism and post-Marxism• Against individualisation, accumulation and commoditisation

• Supporting social relation and community• Against social indifference and isolation

• Supporting the weak and the wider issues (society, environment, the underdeveloped).

Beyond boycotts• Greenpeace’s palm oil campaign focusing on

Unilever's Dove brand achieved spectacular results within a fortnight of launching, whilst stating:

“Unilever is more sensitive to public exposure and debate than a consumer boycott”. The Burma Campaign UK stresses that it is more important to create 'Dirty List' of companies, than to boycott them. The British Union of Anti-Vivesectionists (BUAV) no longer publishes a boycott list, instead they publish a list of companies that don't test on animals.

• But behind each of these examples lies the threat to a company's bottom line. Individuals make their own minds up whether a company deserves the reward of their hard earned cash.

Naomi Klein No Logo

Anti-mainstream consumption

Ethical consumption is...consumption

• Ethical consumption has become a lifestyle, a choice of an individual.

• Individualisation supports capitalism (more individual, niche, tribal needs and desires to satisfy). Zygmunt Bauman

• Does ethical consumption feeds into capitalism after all?

Neoliberalism and ethical consumption: Irreconcilable

paradox• A project liberalisation of the market, fragmentation, and tribalisation of consumers is “justified by government in terms of rhetoric of consumer choice, explicitly promoting the ideology of individualism which denies the existence of any real commonality of interests between either service users and providers, or between different consumers except insofar as they share the limited and short-term interest of buyers in a market place. In this context, individualism is clearly promoted as an ideological justification for the transformation of common resources into sites of accumulation, and individualisation is actively enforced.

By trying to be ethical consumers: do we do ethical consumption or unethical

consumption?• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpAMbpQ8J7g

• Zizek

• Compulsory reading of the online Ethical Consumer Magazine (where you can find a case study): http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/ShoppingEthically/WhyBuyEthically.aspx

•  • Join an online discussion Justmeans:

http://www.justmeans.com/editorials/ethicalconsumption/6.html•  • And a FaceBook Group:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/New-York-NY/JustMeans/37183836043•  • Lewis, T. And E.Potter (2010) Ethical Consumption. London: Routledge. •  • Academic Journal available in Docklands on the shelf: Ethical Consumer

Research Association, available under the code 80531-160 (in chronological order) not for loan, only for reading in the library.

•  • Miles, S., A. Anderson, K.Meethan (2002) The Changing Consumer Markets and

Meanings. London, New York: Routledge. •  • And as e-book:

http://www.dawsonera.com/depp/athens?url=http://www.dawsonera.com/depp/reader/protected/external/AbstractView/S9780203994481