672 The Marketing Book
consumer outcry, or corporate recognition of
the importance and business benefits of corpor-
ate social responsibility, is hard to tell. There is
no denying, however, that together they have a
significant impact. These factors are impacting
on the way businesses conduct themselves in
every respect from governance to marketing.
Stakeholders generally and consumers partic-
ularly are becoming increasingly empowered.
With the IT revolution, this power, both pos-
itive and negative, is available at the touch of a
button.
According to IBM, in 1997, 40 million
people surfed the Internet. In 1998, 60 million
surfed the net (Adkins, 1999a, Chapter 4). In
2000, 94 million and 157.2 million used the
Internet in Europe and North America, respec-
tively (Grayson and Hodges, 2001). The esti-
mated global Internet population is now 400
million (The Little Internet Factbook, 2001) and it
is said that today’s average consumer wears
more computing power on their wrist than
existed in the entire world before 1961! Today,
millions of messages can be sent 24/7 at the
touch of a button.
The information, communication and tech-
nological revolution means that not only has
the speed and access to information increased
exponentially, but that information and good
practice can be shared faster and faster, facilitat-
ing global benchmarking and indeed global
boycotting. This has impacts on the way the
business manages its business from a reputa-
tion, financial and logistical point of view, all of
which impacts on marketing and on which
marketing can have a profound impact. One of
the outcomes is that this forces the pace of
change. Innovation and product development
can now be copied at a much greater rate and
are therefore no longer sustainable areas for
differentiation. Differentiation therefore has to
be built on additional levels. Communication of
reputation, values and vision are becoming
more and more important aspects of this
matrix, aspects which fall under the marketer’s
remit. For the marketeer of the twenty-first
century, managing reputation, developing
values and communicating them is a critical
part of the way business is conducted. Cause-
related marketing provides the opportunity for
a tangible demonstration of an organization’s
values. These values are increasingly under
scrutiny by a number of stakeholders. These
stakeholders include the media and consumers
who want to see behind the brands and are
prepared to show their dissatisfaction when
there is a lack of transparency or when there is
perceived to be a lack of values. Evidence of
this trend has and is being demonstrated
through the social unrest in the UK, across
Europe and across the world.
The anti-globalization riots and consumer
protests over the last few years, in relation to
issues as varied as petrol pricing, human rights,
animal rights, supply chain management, the
environment and third world debt, have
focused consumer attention on business, their
values and the role they have to play. They
have also focused business attention on the
need to develop their relationships and approa-
ches with the various stakeholder groups, in
order to be able to face such scrutiny and
attention. These demonstrations of unrest have
therefore impacted on the development of
marketing strategies.
From a business and marketing perspec-
tive it may have been convenient, if dangerous,
to assume that individuals involved in these
actions are simply militant activists. Such an
interpretation is naive and short-sighted. The
protests around the world have been made up
of many groups and represent the tip of the
iceberg. Similar passions and heated protests
have been demonstrated on the streets and
across campuses throughout Europe and
around the world. Whatever the venue, what-
ever the cause, whatever the issue, one thing is
certain: stakeholders, publics, consumers, call
them what you will, are wanting, needing,
expecting and indeed demanding to be heard
and taken into account. These are the con-
sumers with whom businesses providing prod-
ucts and services ultimately need to connect
and form a relationship.