SOCIAL ASPECTS OF MARKETING.

ByFrederick E. Webster Jr. (Professor ofBusiness Administration.) Englewood Cliffs(N.J.): Prentice-Hall Inc., 1974. 113 pp. Softbound. $3.95.

In recent years one has increasingly encountered the word consumerism in print and on the air. In the past two decades many businessmen have given considerable attention to the marketing concept. Issues involving and related to these two subjects are the main concern of Professor Webster as he analyzes and synthesizes the major social problems facing marketing management.

One could easily draw a misleading inference from Webster's prefactory statement that this book is a "modest attempt" to fill an existing gap in the literature. It is doubtful that any interested consumer or businessman can find as compact and informative a treatment elsewhere.

Marketing has played a major role in the nation's achieving "the highest standard of living ever enjoyed by the average citizen, anywhere, at any time." Paradoxically, never has criticism been so widespread and intense as recently. Consumerism has gone beyond increased recognition of the need for consumer protection and encompasses changing social values relating to affluence and consumption as well as the political forces responding to these two dimensions. It is demanding that marketers give high priority to environmental concerns and public welfare.

The reader is offered an excellent exposition of the environmental consequences of consumption, of the manufacturer's responsibility for the entire socio-ecological product, and the consumer's responsibility for the public effects of his consumption. Interestingly, more than a little criticism of the marketing function is voiced by marketers themselves.

In an overview of consumer and other forces affecting marketing, the author describes in detail the average and the disadvantaged consumer in the 1970s and analyzes the issues involving marketing communications - and product policies. Basic to market success has been skill in communication principally, but by no means solely, advertising. Too frequently ignored is the fact of very active consumer participation in the communication process.

In his final chapter, Webster re-examines the marketing concept. In his positive view, a business philosophy holding that the only true purpose of business is to create satisfied customers can no longer be defended. "The old marketing concept is dead. Consumer values are changing and the pressures for a new degree of social responsibility in marketing are undeniable." Alternatives are available but "most professional managers would prefer to accept the greater challenge of implementing a revised marketing concept, one which places public welfare ahead of individual consumer welfare as the ultimate criterion for socially responsible decision making in marketing."

Now retired, Professor Frey. former presidentof the American Marketing Association, taughtfor 40 years at Dartmouth, later at the Universities of Pittsburg and Maine.