Marketing and Society Paper
Marketing and Society Paper
Marketing and Society Paper
substances, they have been a massive part of our culture. In fact, according to
evidence that a drug's ability to cause a perception of reduced risk or harm while
providing a reward to our dopamine system has played a hand in our very
evolution. Given this, it is no surprise that drug use and addiction is widespread
has been shown to be a net detriment to our society due to the negative physical
withheld and intentionally concealed to the consumer until they have become
addicted. This lack of information is not only a large part of what is driving
addiction rates so high, but it is also the reason why many addicts are unable to
seek help due to the harmful negative stigma associated with addiction.
In response to this, there has been a massive social push against the drug and
alcohol industries in an attempt to reduce the net harm done upon not only the
consenting adults consuming these drugs, but also the effects on children and
teenagers participating both willingly and unwillingly in things like second hand
campaigns have been acting in direct competition with tobacco and drug
companies who are shirking corporate social responsibility and actively doing
light, pharmaceutical companies have been shown to use the principles of social
even more drug addiction. This research paper intends to explore the
Kashyap, teenagers and the more younger addicts are made such by social
pressures from external forces. The desire to look “cool” and the impressionable
nature of a child’s mind makes them easy prey for the manipulation of the
tobacco industry in particular. Kashyap goes on to argue that due to the social
nature behind many teens beginning smoking, this problem could also be
This is supported by a journal article by Jones and Salzman that links the new
massive rise in teen tobacco product use to the sleek and modern design in part.
adolescent students who report tobacco use, primarily for vape products in 2017.
In this image, a jump from 10% to 20% can be seen in teen vaping use over just
three years.
(Image source Cullen KA, Ambrose BK, Gentzke AS, Apelberg BJ, Jamal A, King BA. Notes from the Field: Use of
Electronic Cigarettes and Any Tobacco Products Among Middle and High School Students – United States, 2011–
2018.
introduction, it can be seen that even while this e-cigarette use was going up
prior to 2015, the overall use of tobacco products among youth was steadily
declining. An argument could be made that the trends were moving towards the
elimination of teen smoking until 2017. It’s no coincidence, then, that the launch
of sleek vaping products like the Juul came about in 2015, quickly expanding to
the point where governments were forced to take legal action against vaping
products.
Allow us now to look at the social marketing employed by vaping producer
mentioned that more than a third of the company is owned by Altria, the company
that owns Marlborough. In the twilight years of the decline of cigarettes among
teens, the tobacco giant has spread it’s net wider to extend to vaping companies.
advertising laws due to technicalities. Even today in Canada, vapes and e-liquid
only need to bear a warning that they contain nicotine, an addictive chemical.
Morean and Bold stating that 39% of teenagers didn’t know or didn’t consider
JUULs to be e cigarettes at all, and 63% of teenagers had no idea that JUUL
contained any nicotine at all. Knowing this, vaping companies added the
minimum warning required of them and advertised very specifically that vapes
warning regulations. In 2012, Canada became the first country to require these
these images, disgusting and off putting effects of cigarette usage was displayed
in order to warn away new smokers as well as making smoking addicts think
twice about their behavior. This was an excellent example of the government
vaping industry, which, again, is owned in large part by the cigarette industry,
exploited this lack of knowledge in order to addict the growing youth market to
their products when the youth opinion of cigarettes was reaching an all time low.
They did this by taking advantage of a gap in the law caused by new products to
successfully bring more nicotine addicts in than ever before, with less knowledge
Hammond and Fong found that smokers that had seen these warning labels
were “significantly more likely to endorse health risks” than those who hadn’t.
Using this information, they concluded that there is a massive issue in which
smokers are not being properly informed of all of the risks that are associated
with smoking. Giving people all of the information about cigarettes undeniably led
to a decline in the overall purchasing and led to this social marketing regulation
regarding addictive substances is one of the main tools drug companies use to
push their substances on the market, so it’s no surprise that one of their most
effective strategies was to subvert the law that required them to give out this
improving the society it is performed in, it is not untrue to say that this control of
information is in and of itself a form of negative social marketing that I will now
benefits the social marketer, and provides either no benefit or a net negative
effect to those being marketed to. The tobacco industry uses anti-social
marketing. The terrifying part of all of this, is that all of these actions are perfectly
legal, so what happens when drug companies decide not to worry about the
legality? What happens when the drug being sold is far more dangerous than
nicotine? The answer, unfortunately, has already presented itself before and
The opioid epidemic is a dark topic that still plagues most countries to this day.
As we learned in class, opioid overdoses have killed over 300,000 people since
2000 and are predominantly killing thousands every year. In this example, the
government sector is much more prominent than in the tobacco industry due to
the more violent and sudden nature of overdoses. In a more illegal display of
anti-social marketing, opioids were marketed for chronic pain, in which they are
not meant to be used for. Disregarding many laws and regulations about both the
advertising, as well as the branding of the products and the very laws around
opioids. Using the trust society has for their doctors, drug manufacturers caused
addiction rates to skyrocket, followed closely by overdose rates. This is another
social marketing campaigns to help reduce not only opioid use, but also around
the stigma associated with opioids. This stigma, as explored in Lavack’s “Using
such as drug-addict were eventually turned into derogatory labels. Not only that,
but Lavack further details that the shame of being “in treatment” and the fact that
most people still don’t fully accept recovering addicts is a massive barrier to
article, she mentions a few social marketing campaigns used to eliminate stigma
in the UK and the US, which by proxy can be seen as social marketing uses to
as the Canadian Community based Anti Stigma Campaign of the 2000’s. These
campaigns, through extensive research, found that the best way to help alleviate
the impacts of stigma and it’s presence in general was better education on the
understanding.
Harmful and addictive drugs prey on society’s lack of education about the
dangers, be it the teenagers who don’t comprehend the long term effects of
smoking, the opioid epidemics’ use of trusted doctors and uneducated masses,
these horrible things, what can we do to combat it? We can spread information.
The greatest tool a social marketer has ever known is the ability to spread
masses, addiction is an issue that can be curbed in our society. Shown by the
results of the cigarette picture warnings campaign, SPAM, and the CCASC,
education is a massive part of the fight against addiction and already show that
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inDI06DXVjg&t=18s
Canadian ad for opioid crisis
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