Advertising and older consumers: image and ageism

Despite a growing population of older people, traditional prejudices against age continue to flourish in society. The media in particular are often guilty of ageism, persistently focusing upon the 'youth market', and advertisers are particular offenders. By ignoring older people, or using them as caricatures, the advertising industry not only violates its ethical responsibilities to this group within the community, but also overlooks the commercial opportunity presented by the new generation of older consumers. The article presents research into UK print media which shows that older people tend not to be featured in advertisements in mainstream publications, but are prominent in advertisements in publications for the over-fifties. The issues this raises in terms of the duty of advertisers to respect the rights of older people are discussed, along with the commercial imperative to provide more appropriate images of older people in UK advertising.     

Why bad projects are so hard to kill

Even at the prototype stage, experts were saying the technology was obsolete. Yet, in the face of tepid consumer response, the company stubbornly kept increasing production capacity and developing new models. By the time it was finally killed, the initiative had cost the company an astounding $580 million and had tied up resources for 14 years. The product was RCA's SelectaVision videodisc recorder, and its story is hardly unique. Companies make similar mistakes--if on a somewhat smaller scale--all the time. But why? No one comes to work saying, "I'm going to pursue a project that will waste my company millions of dollars." Quite the opposite. They come to work full of excitement about a project they believe in. And that, surprisingly, can be the root of all the trouble--a fervent belief in the inevitability of a project's ultimate success. Starting, naturally enough, with a project's champion, this faith can spread throughout the organization, leading everyone to believe collectively in the product's viability and to view any signs of impending doom merely as temporary setbacks. This phenomenon is documented here in two chillingly detailed case studied, one involving Essilor, the world's largest maker of corrective lenses for eyeglasses, and the other involving Lafarge, the largest producer of building materials. By counterexample, they point the way toward avoiding such morasses: assembling project teams not entirely composed of like-minded people and putting in place--and sticking to--well-defined review processes. Both cases also show that if it takes a project champion to get a project up and running, it may take a new kind of organizational player--an "exit champion"--to push an irrationally exuberant organization to admit when enough is enough.     

The coherence of inconsistencies: Attitude–behaviour gaps and new consumption communities

Abstract

Despite the growing success of well-marketed environmentally friendly products, there remains a gap between consumers' positive attitudes towards green issues and products, and their inconsistent and often conflicting consumption behaviour. Indeed, this is a challenge for social marketers seeking to advance the sustainability agenda. Therefore, this study problematises what has been conceptualised as attitude–behaviour gaps (Boulstridge & Carrigan, 2000 Boulstridge, E. and Carrigan, M. 2000. Do consumers really care about corporate responsibility? Highlighting the consumer attitude–behaviour gap. Journal of Communication Management, 4(4): 355–368. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), and explores how groups of consumers have re-construed such practices and their meanings through the formation of New Consumption Communities (Szmigin, Carrigan, & Bekin, 2007 Szmigin, I., Carrigan, M. and Bekin, C. 2007. “New consumption communities and the re-enabling of 21st century consumers”. In Consumer tribes, Edited by: Cova, B., Kozinets, R.V. and Shankar, A. 296–311. Oxford: Elsevier/Butterworth-Heinemann.  [Google Scholar]). Multi-sited ethnographic findings illustrate the social processes through which ethical and green forms of consumption are established and normalised. Findings also stress the importance of normative and habitual reframing through ‘ethical spaces’ (Barnett, Clarke et al., 2005 Barnett, C., Cafaro, P. and Newholm, T. 2005. “Philosophy and ethical consumption”. In The ethical consumer, Edited by: Harrison, R., Newholm, T. and Shaw, D. 11–24. London: Sage. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) in establishing and maintaining increased consistency in participants' consumption meanings, behaviours, and goals. Thus we re-frame attitude–behaviour gaps as coherent inconsistencies, which allows for a move away from solely trying to explain and change individual consumer behaviour, to identifying how suitable upstream and downstream (Verplanken & Wood, 2006 Verplanken, B. and Wood, W. 2006. Interventions to break and create consumer habits. Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, 25(1): 90–103. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) approaches and policies can be used to facilitate more sustainable forms of consumption.