Journal of Social Marketing
Social negative option marketing: A partial response to one
of Spotswood, French, Tapp and Stead’s (2012)
“uncomfortable questions”
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Journal:
Manuscript ID:
Manuscript Type:
Keywords:
Journal of Social Marketing
JSOCM-06-2014-0036.R2
Conceptual Paper
Marketing, Message framing
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Page 1 of 47
Social negative option marketing: A partial response to one of Spotswood, French,
Tapp and Stead’s (2012) “uncomfortable questions”
“Because social marketers are not (usually) elected by the public
(though they may work for people who are), they require some justification
to answer the charge that their social marketing activities are not simply the
efforts of one group trying to impose its ways on other people” (Brenkert,
2002: 19).
Spotswood, French, Tapp and Stead (2012) in a recent issue of this journal offer seven
questions that articulate some of their concerns about social marketing. While the questions are
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highly interrelated, the first question discussed by Spotswood et al. (2012: 165) is the focus of
this paper:
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“Should social marketers use implicit (rather than explicit) behavior
change techniques?”
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The academic debate on the ethical dimensions of social marketing has been evolving
since the late 1970s when Murphy, Laczniak, and Lusch (1978: 195) noted that
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“Today, politicians, charities and symphony orchestras
are promoted like the newest dish detergent.”
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These authors developed a typology of social marketing programs that attempted to address
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questions like the ethics of using such marketing to promote the value judgments of special
interest groups like the Sierra Club, the Hemlock society, or pornographers. In a subsequent
empirical study, Laczniak, Lusch, and Murphy (1979) asked both academics and practitioners
about the ethical issues of using marketing techniques to sway social opinion and found that
there was concern that social issues should not be promoted through modern marketing methods.
In fact, Laczniak et al. (1979: 35) asked:
“Is the increased involvement of marketing specialists in the promotion of ideas, personalities, and organizations a beneficial
development from the standpoint of U. S. society? … What
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constitutes a “good” (or bad) product or idea? … How can possible
abuse of social marketing be controlled?”
These questions become more salient as marketing exchanges are mediated through
digital technology and where socially “virtuous” selections can be programmed by “choice
architects” who help to “shape” the situations in which people encounter choices, often through
the use of defaults. These “nudges” are choices often created by government behavioral insight
units that are helping form the publics’ choices toward a default which is in the publics’ best
interest (Cornwall, 2014). In a similar vein, Shove (2003) suggested that the only choice really
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offered through involuntary “choice editing” is where the alleged socially undesirable (but
importantly not illegal) options are simply edited out (see Lang and Gataher, 2009).
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PURPOSE
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The purpose of this paper is to address one of Spotswood et al.’s (2012) “uncomfortable
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questions” by considering negative option marketing, or defaults, a practice in which a
“customer’s silence or failure to take an affirmative action to reject goods or services or to cancel
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the agreement is interpreted by the seller as acceptance of the offer” (Federal Register, 2003, p.
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4670) in the context of social marketing. Then Hunt-Vitell’s (1986, 1993, 2006) Theory of
Marketing Ethics is used to evaluate negative option social marketing (NOSM) against President
Kennedy’s (1962) Consumer Bill of Rights and the American Marketing Association’s (2014)
statement of marketing ethics. In addition, this paper examines two key ethical considerations
that critics have leveled against the use of defaults, a key element in NOSM: (1) the lack of
transparency; and (2) the adverse impact of default rules that may prove especially harmful to at
risk populations.
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NUDGING—THE TOOL OF NOSM
Nudge theory and the concept of nudges was named and popularized by Thaler and
Sunstein (2008) based on the work of Kahneman and Tversky (e.g., 1979). Thaler and
Sunstein’s (2008) work made a portfolio of heuristic tendencies from psychology,
communication, economics, political science, and marketing cohesive, comprehensible, and
highly marketable. The concepts drawn upon by Thaler and Sunstein (2008) are also consistent
with other recent books (e.g., Ariely, 2010; Cialdini, 2008; Heath and Heath, 2010; Kahneman,
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2011) about change and influence that rely on insights from marketing and social sciences on
how decisions are actually made and suggests that human judgment is often guided by simple,
oftentimes irrational principles.
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Nudges gently push people to make decisions by changing the way choices are presented.
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Social nudging involves engineering people’s choices so as to channel them to make more
socially desirable decisions (from the perspective of the policymaker) without substantively
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limiting their choice. Nudges are not legal or regulatory mandates. Taxing “un-healthy” food at
a higher rate than “healthier” food is a nudge; making “un-healthy food” illegal is not.
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Nudging—framing people’s choices so as to direct them to certain outcomes promoting a
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“good society” (Dolan, Hallsworth, Halpern, King, and Vlaev, 2012: 16) without substantively
limiting choice—has become fashionable (Thaler and Sunstein, 2008; Willis, 2012). “Nudges
are ways of influencing choice without limiting the choice set or making alternatives appreciably
more costly in terms of time, trouble, social sanctions, and so forth” (Hausman and Welch, 2010:
126). They are low cost to both the person targeted and the organization or agency employing
them; they are passive/easy in that they require little effort; and they push people to make
choices that are good for themselves or society by taking advantage of imperfections in human
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decision-making abilities (French, 2011). Nudges often include a variety of soft touches as
outlined by Bonell, McKee, Fletcher, Wilkinson, and Haines (2011):
“Nudges might involve subconscious cues (such as painting targets
in urinals to improve accuracy) or correcting misapprehensions about
social norms (like telling us that most people do not drink excessively).
They can alter the profile of different choices (such as the prominence
of healthy food in canteens) or change which options are the default
(such as having to opt out of rather than into organ donor schemes).
Nudges can also create incentives for some choices or impose minor
economic or cognitive costs on other options such as people who quit
smoking banking money they would have spent on their habit but only
being able to withdraw it when they test as nicotine free” (p. d401).
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The use of nudges to shape behavior has become so popular that in 2010, U. K. Prime
Minister David Cameron set up the Behavioral Insights Team—or nudge unit to “persuade
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citizens to choose what is best for themselves and society” (Basham, 2010: 4). Three years later,
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the team has doubled in size because of its success in nudging British consumers to pay taxes on
time, insulate their attics, sign up for organ donation, stop smoking during pregnancy, and give
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to charity. Likewise in the U. S., the Obama administration embraced nudges (Dorning, 2010)
and has used them to increase enrollment in the President’s signature piece of legislation, The
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Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Maher, 2012).
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While nudges can be effective in promoting some behaviors they are not intended to
represent a comprehensive repertoire of behavioral change interventions (French, 2011). Choice
architecture, a term coined by Thaler and Sunstein (2008), describes the way in which decisions
are influenced by how the selections are framed or presented. Social nudges can range from
shrinking plate sizes in cafeterias so that people implicitly reduce portion size (Wansink, 2006)
to repainting roadways in order to create the illusion that drivers are going too fast (Selinger and
Whyte, 2011).
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DEFAULTS
The quintessential illustration of a nudge is a default which is the designated course of
action for those who fail to explicitly choose for themselves (Willis, 2012). Default options are
automatically chosen when individuals make no active choice and stay with the given state or
condition (Brown and Krishna, 2004) and are sometimes considered “hidden persuaders” (Smith,
Goldstein, and Johnson, 2009: 1) because people tend to continue with preset options.
Default options can exert a significant influence on behavior. Compared to the non-
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enrollment default, governments that presume citizens as willing organ donors have markedly
higher donation rates (Abadie & Gay, 2006; Johnson & Goldstein, 2003); companies with
automatic 401(k) enrollment have more employees who save for retirement (Madrian & Shea,
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2001); cities with “green” electricity defaults have lower energy usage (Pichert & Katsikopoulos,
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2008); and states with limited tort default have drivers who pay lower insurance premiums
(Johnson, Hershey, Meszaros, & Kunreuther, 1993). Default effects have also been observed in
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the use of advanced medical directives, internet privacy preferences, legal contracts, medical
vaccine adherence, and even for how psychologists choose to analyze their data (Bellman,
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Johnson, and Lohse, 2001; Chapman, Li, Colby, and Yoon, 2010; Fabrigar, Wegener,
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MacCallum, and Strahan, 1999; Johnson, Bellman, and Lohse, 2002; Korobkin, 1998; Kressel,
Chapman, and Leventhal, 2007; Young, Monin, and Owens, 2009).
Thus, defaults matter and their appeal is considered so strong that it has been referred to
as the “iron law of default inertia” (Ayres, 2006: 5). Their influence is due in large part to the
following fundamental reasons:
1. Implied Endorsement. People sometimes treat defaults as a form of implicit advice.
When choice architects have explicitly chosen the default, consumers tend to believe that
they should not depart from it unless they have information that would justify a change
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Journal of Social Marketing
(McKenzie, Liersch, and Finkelstein, 2006). Consumers assume that the default was
chosen as providing the typically best choice (Madrian and Shea, 2001).
2. Effort. Default effects are also partially due to effort (Samuelson and Zeckhauser, 1988).
Making a decision involves effort, whereas accepting the default is easy. To alter the
default rule, people must make an active choice to reject that rule. Especially (but not
only) if the question is difficult, technical, or with social implications it is less taxing to
defer the decision by accepting the default.
3. Status quo. Defaults, by design represent the existing state or status quo. The status quo
bias is a psychological principle which involves the propensity of decision makers to
keep things the way they are (Samuelson and Zeckhauser, 1988) often leading humans to
make choices that guarantee that things remain the same, or change as little as possible.
This preference results in inertia.
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Defaults do not force anyone to do anything. On the contrary, they maintain freedom of
choice. Whether people opt out or opt in, they are permitted to do so as they see fit. Default
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rules nonetheless have a large impact, because they tend to stick (Johnson and Goldstein, 2004).
Defaults can be valuable and worth a fight. For example, search engines like Google and MSN
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want their browser to be the default preloaded on computers and go to court to preserve such
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status so as to garner more of the roughly $20 billion search-advertisement market (Kesan &
Shah, 2006).
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NEGATIVE OPTION MARKETING
Marketers have exploited the power of defaults within a NOM framework where the
consumer’s failure to reject or cancel an offer (i.e., to act) signals consent. NOM, also referred
to as advance consent marketing, automatic renewals, continuous-service agreements, unsolicited
marketing, inertia selling, “free trial” offers, or “book-of-the-month” type plans, uses defaults to
take advantage of the tendency toward the status quo and inaction to achieve marketing
objectives (Sunstein, 2013). NOM requires that consumers take action so as to not purchase the
product or service (Licata and Von Bergen, 2007). NOM incorporates an opt-out default in
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which consent is presumed and where not explicitly making a choice, doing nothing, or being
silent means agreement. Individuals must explicitly become involved and take steps to prevent
the default from occurring and the sale from consummating (Lamont, 1995).
Four types of plans generally fall within the NOM category: pre-notification negative
option plans; continuity plans; automatic renewals; and free-to-pay or nominal fee-to-pay
conversion plans (U.S. Federal Trade Commission, 2009). First, in pre-notification plans, such as
book, wine, or music clubs, sellers send periodic notices offering goods. If consumers take no
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action, sellers send the goods and charge consumers. Second, in continuity plans, consumers
agree in advance to receive periodic shipments of goods or provision of services, which they
continue to receive until they cancel the agreement. Third, in automatic renewals, a magazine
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seller, for example, may automatically renew a consumer’s subscription when it expires and
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charge for it, unless the consumer cancels the subscription. Finally, sellers also structure trial
offers as free-to-pay, or nominal-fee-to-pay, conversions, such as receiving free premium cable
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channels for 60 days. In these plans, consumers receive goods or services for free (or at a
nominal fee) for a trial period. After the trial period, sellers automatically begin charging a fee
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(or higher fee) unless consumers affirmatively cancel or return the goods or services.
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In the case of NOSM, the marketer uses defaults to encourage “virtuous” behavior, even
if the subject would not normally explicitly choose to engage in that behavior. An example of a
NOSM program is a “carbon off-set” scheme by Qantas Airlines which “encourages” their
customers to make a more environmentally friendly decision by a opt out donation to an
approved organization that uses the funds to allegedly offset the passenger’s share of flight
emissions by some form of carbon sequestration. Customers who do not wish pay the extra fee
must explicitly opt out of the purchase of the carbon off-set during the on-line transaction. The
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present study defines NOSM as engineering people’s choices so as to channel them through the
use of defaults or opt-out marketing to make more socially desirable decisions (from the
perspective of the policymaker) without substantively limiting their choice, as illustrated by the
Qantas “carbon off-set” program.
ETHICS OF NEGATIVE OPTION SOCIAL MARKETING
Influencing behavior is central to social marketing. It is nothing new to governments,
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which have often used tools such as legislation, regulation, or taxation to achieve desired policy
outcomes, nor to marketers which have employed numerous advertising promotions to guide
people’s behavior. But it is now being used by nations in social marketing campaigns to warn of
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the dangers of obesity or the problem of domestic violence to achieve desired policy outcomes
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using nudges. NOSM nudges have garnered increased attention primarily because its
techniques—often involving relatively minor and subtle changes to processes, forms, and
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language—have provided policymakers a potentially potent new set of tools to influence citizen
choices and behavior so as to shape individual behavior.
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The increased use of such NOSM has raised a number of ethical concerns including: (1) a
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re-conceptualization of the “state-individual relationship,” (Ménard 2010: 229), suggesting that
policymakers assume that “the masses are too stupid to make good decisions for themselves
(Selinger and Whyte 2011: 928); and (2) that nudges undermine trust in patient-physician
relationships or exploit power-differences particularly in vulnerable populations (BlumenthalBarby and Burroughs, 2012). Hansen and Jespersen (2013: 5) note that social nudging
“seems to make the approach incompatible with public policymaking in a modern
democracy. Indeed, state manipulation with the choices of citizens appears to be at odds
with the democratic ideals of free exercise of choice, deliberation, and public dialogue.”
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Likewise, Haug and Busch (2013) identify a lack of clarity pertaining to the ethical dimensions
of nudges, suggesting the need for an ethical framework.
These ethical concerns about NOSM appear to be consistent with a notion voiced by
former U. S. President John Kennedy in a speech to Congress, that consumers have the right to
freedom of choice. President Kennedy (1962) said that:
“Marketing is increasingly impersonal. Consumer choice is influenced by mass
advertising utilizing highly developed arts of persuasion…. Additional legislative
and administrative action is required, however, if the federal Government is to meet
its responsibility to consumers in the exercise of their rights. These rights include:
1. The right to safety…
2. The right to be informed…
3. The right to choose…
4. The right to be heard….”
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This Consumer Bill of Rights as it has become known can be used to suggest ethical
issues that may arise with the implementation of NOSM techniques as a tool of social policy.
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For example, would a consumer who does not want to support a specific social cause be truly
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free to choose under the conditions of a social nudge’s choice architecture without incurring
either pecuniary or non-pecuniary costs over and above those faced by consumers making a more
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socially desirable decision? If NOSM techniques were used the answer is yes, the consumer
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making the less socially desirable choice could face more effort, time or even pecuniary costs.
The ethical concerns that are associated with the use of NOSM can also be evaluated
using Hunt and Vitell’s (1986, 1993, 2006) general theory of marketing ethics. The Hunt-Vitell
(1986, 1993, 2006) theory suggests that ethical decision making is ultimately judged at the nexus
of deontological (the behavioral means) and teleological (the outcomes or “desired end states”)
evaluations that are influenced by cultural, individual, industry, and organizational environments
coupled with the personal characteristics of the decision maker and are an antecedent to ethical
judgments. When both the means and ends of the act result in social good, that is, that no one is
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made worse off (see Arrow, 1950) the act is deemed ethical. This theory can be used to explain
the ethical implications of NOSM. Figure 1 adapts a simplified model of the Hunt-Vitell (1986,
1993, 2006) theory to the context of NOSM as an illustration. Table 1 provides a summary of
the interrelationship between NOSM and the Consumer Bill of Rights evaluated by the Hunt and
Vitell (1986, 1993, 2006) framework.
--------------------------------------Inset FIGURE 1 about here
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----------------------------------------------------------------------------Insert TABLE 1 about here
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---------------------------------------
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NOSM violates the spirit of Kennedy’s (1962) Consumer Bill of Rights by making the
pecuniary and non-pecuniary costs of the public actively choosing higher than simply accepting
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the nudge. NOSM makes some worse off by increasing their costs to express their choice. For
example, when NOSM is used to support a vaccination campaign, there is a very small number
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of vaccine recipients that will be harmed by the vaccine. By increasing the time, effort, and
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potentially financial costs of making a choice, NOSM forces the policy makers’ values on the
public, potentially diminishing the safety, and rights of some individuals to be safe, to choose, to
be informed, and to be heard.
Likewise, when defaults have an effect because consumers are not aware that they have
choices, or because the transaction costs of changing from the default are onerous, NOSM
marketing may be ethically problematic. Schwartz (2005: 39) proposes a set of “universal moral
values” which include: (1) trustworthiness; (2) respect; (3) responsibility; (4) fairness; (5) caring;
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and (6) citizenship. Similarly, the American Marketing Association’s (AMA’s) Statement of
Ethics (2014) appear to largely capture Schwartz’s domain with the following norms: (1) do no
harm; (2) foster trust in the marketing system; and (3) embrace the ethical values of honesty,
responsibility, fairness, respect, transparency, and citizenship. NOSM may foster distrust by the
public and seems to be at odds with the mandate to “embrace, communicate, and practice the
fundamental ethical values that will improve consumer confidence in the integrity of the
marketing exchange system” (AMA, 2014).
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Specifically, NOSM may violate AMA’s basic values which include: (1) honesty; (2)
responsibility; (3) fairness; (4) respect; (5) transparency; and (6) citizenship. Honesty requires
the social marketer “to be truthful and forthright in … dealings with customers and
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stakeholders;” and “tell the truth in all situations and at all times.” Additionally, NOSM works
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best in the dark and may be implicitly dishonest, violating any semblance of transparency.
Responsibility and respect suggest that the social marketer must both “recognize our special
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commitments to vulnerable market segments such as children, seniors, the economically
impoverished, market illiterates and others who may be substantially disadvantaged…and avoid
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using coercion with all stakeholders,”(AMA, 2014). On the other hand NOSM forces those with
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different values from the choice architects to pay a cost in time, effort, or even money if they
wish to actually exercise their choice. Fairness requires that social marketers represent their
ideas or products in a fair and clear manner with the aim to truthfully communicate the attributes,
avoiding conflicts of interest, or marketer manipulation. Social marketers under the AMA
(2014) Statement of Ethics also have the obligation to be good citizens. Table 2 provides a
summary of the interrelationship between NOSM and marketing ethics.
---------------------------------------
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Insert TABLE 2 about here
--------------------------------------The more specific ethical criticisms of nudging (and defaults) have included: (1) lack of
transparency; and, (2) a negative impact on poor and low income people. Nudging and defaults
work by implicitly “manipulating people’s choices” (Bovens, 2009: 19; Vallgårda, 2012: 201)
and behavior (Hansen and Jespersen, 2013), and this has ethical implications because of its lack
of transparency. For example, Bovens (2009: 209) has questioned the ethics of nudges because
they:
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“… typically work better in the dark. If we tell students that the order of the food in the
Cafeteria is rearranged for dietary purposes, then the intervention may be less
successful.”
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While nudges tend to work best when people are unaware that it is influencing their
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behavior (Selinger and Whyte, 2010), recent research by Loewenstein, Bryce, Hagmann, and
Rajpal (2014) seems to complicate the matter. These researchers found, in the context of end-of-
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life care choices, that even when individuals are explicitly informed that a default rule is in place,
and that it has been chosen because it affects people’s decisions, there is essentially no effect on
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what people do which suggests that people are not uncomfortable with defaults, even when they
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are made aware that choice architects have selected them, and do so because of their significant
effect. Clearly further research is needed, specifically when NOSM is used in high involvement
decisions such as medical care choices.
The second specific ethical concern is that certain vulnerable groups may be particularly
sensitive to defaults. Some research (e.g., Brown, Farrell, and Weisbenner, 2012) has found that
minorities and the poor and other less “sophisticated” participants—those with lower education
levels, who are less confident in their skills in a given context, and who have lower levels of
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Page 13 of 47
knowledge about specific plan parameters—are more influenced by defaults. This suggests that
certain at risk individuals are less likely to opt out of the default and are more susceptible to
defaults even when it is relatively inappropriate for them and further negatively impacts their
already modest economic wellbeing. According to Mani, Mullainathan, Shafir, and Zhao (2013)
this may happen because poverty-related concerns consume mental resources, leaving less for
other tasks—like evaluating the appropriateness of defaults, and leaving them more vulnerable to
unscrupulous social marketers using NOSM schemes.
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SUMMARY
This paper has explored NOSM and how it relates to both the AMA Statement of
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Marketing Ethics and President Kennedy’s Consumer Bill of Rights using the Hunt-Vitell (1986,
er
1993, 2006) general theory of marketing ethics and an evaluative framework. NOSM’s power to
influence choice seems at odds with both the Consumer Bill of Rights and the AMA Statement
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of Marketing Ethics, underlined by Schwartz’s (2005) statement of universal human values.
These frameworks mandate respectful, open, fair, and honest communication allowing for true
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freedom of choice. It appears that the use of NOSM to achieve public policy objectives falls
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short of the standards set by these frameworks when evaluated by the Hunt-Vitell (1986, 1993,
2006) marketing ethics protocol, thereby and answering one of Spotswood et al.’s (2012)
“uncomfortable questions”—“(S)hould social marketers use implicit (rather than explicit)
behavior change techniques?” The answer is quite clearly no.
13
Journal of Social Marketing
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Figure 1
Adapting the Hunt-Vitell (1986, 1993, 2006) Theory of Ethics to NOSM
Deontoligical evaluation of
percived social problem (are
the means ethical?)
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Antecedent Enviroment
(culture, regulatory
institutions, individual values)
Are both the means and ends
socially "good?" - If not then
the act is not ethical
EVALUATION OF THE ETHICAL
DIMENSIONS OF NOSM
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Teleological evaluation of
percived consequences (are
the outcomes desirable from
a social "good" perspective?)
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19
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TABLE 1
KENNEDY’S (1962) CONSUMER BILL OR RIGHTS AND THE IMPLICATIONS
OF NOSM EVAULTATED BY THE HUNT-VITELL (1986, 1993, 2006) THEORY
OF MARKETING ETHICS
CONSUMER DEONTOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS – ARE THE
RIGHT
MEANS1 OF NOSM GOOD
TO SAFETY
The Implied Endorsement by an expert means of NOSM
could reduce the probability of a consumer critically
evaluating an option.
The choice architecture design of low Effort may
discourage the consumer exploring “safer” alternatives.
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TO BE
INFORMED
The notion of the nudge being the part of the Status Quo
may imply a safe choice when that is not the case for that
specific individual
The Implied Endorsement could reduce the probability of
information search.
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The low Effort dimension of NOSM nudges may result in
low involvement with the issue by the public.
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TO
CHOOSE
The power of maintaining the Status Quo may imply that
there is no need to become informed on an issue.
The Implied Endorsement could reduce the probability of
making an active choice.
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The low Effort dimension of NOSM nudges may result in
many members of the public abdicating their right to
choose in favor of the nudge’s lower time and efforts
demands.
TELEOLOGICAL
IMPLICATIONS –
ARE THE ENDS
GOOD
Choices made due to
NOSM could reduce
safety for some
individuals, while
enhancing the
publics’ mean level of
“social welfare.”
NOSM may constrain
consumer information
search and result in a
less educated public.
Freedom of choice is
constrained by the
marginal pecuniary
and non-pecuniary
costs of choice.
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Page 20 of 47
TO BE
HEARD
The Status Quo as the “correct choice” implies that there is
no need to choose for your-self.
The Implied Endorsement may diminish any dissent.
The low Effort dimension of NOSM nudges may encourage
the public not to speak out.
The Status Quo may in fact silence most other voices.
1: adapted from Ayres (2006)
20
NOSM increases the
costs of “being heard”
and may reduce the
voice of the consumer
in the market place
Page 21 of 47
TABLE 2
AMERICAN MARKETING ASSOCIATION’S (AMA’S) STATEMENT OF
MARKETING ETHICS (2014) AND THE IMPLICATIONS OF NOSM
EVAULTATED BY THE HUNT-VITELL (1986, 1993, 2006) THEORY
OF MARKETING ETHICS
AMA’s ETHICAL NORMS
AND VALUES
DO NO HARM
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FOSTER TRUST IN THE
MARKETING SYSTEM
HONESITY
RESPONSIBILITY
DEONTOLOGICAL
IMPLICATIONS
If the choice is not in the one
that the consumer would
have made in the absence of
NOSM, then it could violate
this norm
NOSM diminishes the level
of behavior based on trust
The behavior of a social
marketer employing NOSM
is not honest
If the social marketer was
acting in the consumers’ best
interest then NOSM may
positively influence
responsible behavior.
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FAIRNESS
NOSM guides choice to
what is in the best interest of
the “public,” but not always
what is in the best interest of
the individual.
Thaler and Sunstein’s (2008)
“libertarian paternalism”
assumes that the public does
not possess the capacity to
make informed and rational
choices.
By nature NOSM does not
result in transparent behavior
by the social marketer – as
Thaler and Sunstein (2008)
note – nudges work better in
the dark.
The implications of NOSM
in reducing choice also
diminish good citizenship.
TELEOLOGICAL
IMPLICATIONS
If the choice is not in
the consumers’ best
interest, then it could
violate this norm
The nature of NOSM
would constrain the
public’s trust
The nature of NOSM
would limit an honest
outcome
If the social marketer
was acting in the
consumers’ best interest
then NOSM may
positively influence a
socially desirable
outcome.
Some individuals who
accept the nudge will
make sub-optimal
choices.
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RESPECT
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NOSM diminishes the
respect that the social
marketer would hold
for the public
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TRANSPARENCY
CITIZENSHIP
21
For NOSM to be most
effective it cannot be
transparent.
Effective democracies
require active choice.
Journal of Social Marketing
Abstract
Purpose: to address one of Spotswood et al.’s (2012) “uncomfortable questions.” The
paper applies negative option marketing (NOM), the use of defaults as a behavioral
engineering tool to shape choice, to social marketing and then uses the Hunt-Vitell
(1986, 1993, 2006) Theory of Marketing Ethics to evaluate it against President
Kennedy’s (1962) Consumer Bill of Rights and the American Marketing Association’s
(2014) statement of marketing ethics? .
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Design: a conceptual assessment of the ethics of negative option social marketing
(NOSM.).
Findings: when assessed using the Hunt-Vitell (1986, 1993, 2006) Theory of Marketing
Ethics NOSM possesses neither ethical means nor socially desirable ends.
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Practical/Social Implications: the findings suggest that although NOMnegative option
marketing is an attractive social engineering technique social marketers should avoid
using NOSM due to its ethical implicationsconcerns.
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Originality: this study’s contribution is that it applies an accepted ethical
theoryframework to show how, for the first time,illustrate that the use of NOSM is notby
social marketers has ethical implications.
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Keywords: Negative Option Social Marketing, Nudges, Ethics
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Page 23 of 47
Social negative option marketing: A partial response to one of Spotswood, French,
Tapp and Stead’s (2012) “uncomfortable questions”
“The search for a clear definition of optimum social welfare (or social good) has
been plagued by the difficulties of interpersonal comparisons. The emphasis, as is
well known, has shifted to a weaker definition of optimum, namely, the
determination of all social states such that no individual can be made better off
without making someone else worse off” (Arrow, 1950: 329).
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“Because social marketers are not (usually) elected by the public
(though they may work for people who are), they require some justification
justification to answer the charge that their social marketing activities
are not simply the efforts of one group trying to impose its ways on
other people” (Brenkert , ,
2002: 19).
Formatted: Left, Indent: Left: 1", Line
spacing: single
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Spotswood, French, Tapp and Stead (2012) in a recent issue of this journal offer seven
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questions that articulate some of their concerns about social marketing. While the questions are
highly interrelated, the first question discussed by Spotswood et al. (2012: 165) is the focus of
this paper:
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“Should social marketers use implicit (rather than explicit) behavior
change techniques?”
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The academic debate on the ethical dimensions of social marketing has been evolving
since the late 1970s when Murphy, Laczniak, and Lusch (1978: 195) noted that
“Today, politicians, charities and symphony orchestras
are promoted like the newest dish detergent.”
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Journal of Social Marketing
These authors developed a typology of social marketing programs that attempted to address
questions like the ethics of using such marketing to promote the value judgments of special
interest groups like the Sierra Club, the Hemlock society, or pornographers. In a subsequent
empirical study, Laczniak, Lusch, and Murphy (1979) asked both academics and practitioners
about the ethical issues of using marketing techniques to sway social opinion and found that
2
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there was concern that social issues should not be promoted through modern marketing methods.
In fact, Laczniak et al. (1979: 35) asked:
“Is the increased involvement of marketing specialists in the promotion of ideas, personalities, and organizations a beneficial
development from the standpoint of U. S. society? … What
constitutes a “good” (or bad) product or idea? … How can possible
abuse of social marketing be controlled?”
These questions become more salient as marketing exchanges are mediated through
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digital technology and where socially “virtuous” selections can be programmed by “choice
architects”—” who helpshelp to “shape” the situations in which people encounter choices., often
through the use of defaults. These “nudges” are choices often created by government behavioral
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insight units that are helping “shape”form the publics’ choices toward whata default which is in
the publics’ best interest (Cornwall, 2014). In a similar vein, Shove (2003) suggested that the
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only choice really offered through involuntary “choice editing” is where the alleged socially
undesirable (but importantly not illegal) options are simply edited out (see Lang and Gataher,
2009).
PURPOSE
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The purpose of this paper is to attempt to address one of Spotswood et al.’s (2012)
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“uncomfortable questions” by first considering negative option marketing (NOM)—, or defaults,
a practice in which a “customer’s silence or failure to take an affirmative action to reject goods
or services or to cancel the agreement is interpreted by the seller as acceptance of the offer”
(U.S.C. Title 16)—and applying it to social marketing. We then evaluate itFederal Register,
2003, p. 4670) in the context of social marketing. Then Hunt-Vitell’s (1986, 1993, 2006)
Theory of Marketing Ethics is used to evaluate negative option social marketing (NOSM) against
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President Kennedy’s (1962) Consumer Bill of Rights and the American Marketing Association’s
(2014) statement of marketing ethics to determine if social marketers should answer the
normative question of whether should use negative option social marketing (NOSM)?. In
addition to these more general concerns we examine, this paper examines two key ethical
considerations that critics have leveled against the use of defaults, a key element in NOSM—:
(1) the lack of transparency; and (2) the adverse impact of default rules that may prove especially
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harmful to at risk populations that can least afford to be harmed.
NUDGING—THE TOOL OF NOSM
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Nudge theory and the concept of nudges was named and popularized by Thaler and
Sunstein (2008) based on the work of Kahneman and Tversky (e.g., 1979). Thaler and
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Sunstein’s (2008) work made a portfolio of heuristic tendencies from psychology,
communication, economics, political science, and marketing cohesive, comprehensible, and
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highly marketable. The concepts drawn upon by Thaler and Sunstein (2008) are also consistent
with other recent books (e.g., Ariely, 2010; Cialdini, 2008; Heath and Heath, 2010; Kahneman,
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2011) about change and influence that rely on insights from marketing and social sciences on
how decisiondecisions are actually made and suggests that human decision-makingjudgment is
often guided by simple, oftentimes irrational principles.
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Nudges gently push people to make decisions by changing the way choices are presented.
Social nudging involves engineering people’s choices so as to channel them to make more
socially desirable decisions (from the perspective of the policy makerpolicymaker) without
substantively limiting their choice. Nudges are not legal or regulatory mandates. Taxing “un-
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healthy” food at a higher rate than “healthier” food is a nudge; making “un-healthy food” illegal
is not.
The quintessential illustration of a nudge is a default. Defaults are settings or rules, or
options about the way products, policies, or legal relationships function that apply unless users,
affected citizens, or parties take action to change them (Willis, 2013), and they can exert a
substantial influence on choice without restricting decision makers’ freedom to choose (Sunstein
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and Thaler, 2003). Default options are automatically chosen when individuals make no active
choice (Brown and Krishna, 2004).
Default effects are powerful (Johnson and Goldstein, 2012), and the strength of defaults
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has been demonstrated in many areas ranging from choices about energy suppliers (Pichert and
Katsikopoulos, 2008) to organ donation (Davidai, Gilovich, and Ross, 2012; Johnson and
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Goldstein, 2003). Nudging—framing people’s choices so as to direct them to certain outcomes
promoting a “good society” (Dolan, Hallsworth, Halpern, King, and Vlaev, 2012: 16) without
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substantively limiting choice—has become fashionable (Thaler and Sunstein, 2008; Willis,
2012). “Nudges are ways of influencing choice without limiting the choice set or making
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alternatives appreciably more costly in terms of time, trouble, social sanctions, and so forth”
(Hausman and Welch, 2010: 126). They are low cost to both the person targeted and the
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organization or agency employing them; they are passive/easy in that they require little effort;
and they push people to make choices that are good for themselves or society by taking
advantage of imperfections in human decision-making abilities (French, 2011). Nudges often
include a variety of soft touches as outlined by Bonell, McKee, Fletcher, Wilkinson, and Haines
(2011):
“Nudges might involve subconscious cues (such as painting targets
in urinals to improve accuracy) or correcting misapprehensions about
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social norms (like telling us that most people do not drink excessively).
They can alter the profile of different choices (such as the prominence
of healthy food in canteens) or change which options are the default
(such as having to opt out of rather than into organ donor schemes).
Nudges can also create incentives for some choices or impose minor
economic or cognitive costs on other options such as people who quit
smoking banking money they would have spent on their habit but only
being able to withdraw it when they test as nicotine free” (p. d401).
The use of nudges to shape behavior has become so popular that in 2010, U. K. Prime
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Minister David Cameron set up the Behavioral Insights Team—or nudge unit to “persuade
citizens to choose what is best for themselves and society” (Basham, 2010: 4). Three years later,
the team has doubled in size because of its success in nudging British consumers to pay taxes on
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time, insulate their attics, sign up for organ donation, stop smoking during pregnancy, and give
to charity. Likewise in the U. S., the Obama administration embraced nudges (Dorning, 2010)
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and has used them to increase enrollment in the President’s signature piece of legislation, The
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Maher, 2012).
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While nudges can be effective in promoting some behaviors they are not intended to
represent a comprehensive repertoire of behavioral change interventions (French, 2011). Choice
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architecture, a term coined by Thaler and Sunstein (2008), describes the way in which decisions
are influenced by how the selections are framed or presented. Social nudges can range from
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shrinking plate sizes in cafeterias so that people implicitly reduce portion size (Wansink, 2006)
to repainting roadways in order to create the illusion that drivers are going too fast (Selinger and
Whyte, 2011).
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DEFAULTS
One The quintessential illustration of a nudge that is particularly effective involves
defaults—“a default which is the choice alternative a consumer receives if he/she does
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notdesignated course of action for those who fail to explicitly specify otherwise”choose for
themselves (Willis, 2012). Default options are automatically chosen when individuals make no
active choice and stay with the given state or condition (Brown and Krishna, 2004: 529)—
which) and are sometimes considered “hidden persuaders” (Smith, Goldstein, and Johnson,
2009: 1) because people tend to continue with preset options. Defaults are settings that apply, or
outcomes that stick; i.e., when individuals do not take active steps to change them (Willis, 2012).
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Default rules establish what happens if people do nothing at all.
Many state governments in the U. S. have leveraged NOSM to socially engineer
additional revenue streams for parks (Johnson, 2014). For example, since 2004, when Montana
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residents renew their vehicle registration they are automatically charged a $6 state parks’ fee,
unless the driver goes to the county treasurer’s office in person to sign a waiver stating that they
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will not use that specific vehicle to visit any Montana state park. With this opt out system, 80%
of Montanans agreed to pay a few extra dollars to support state parks and revenues have
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increased significantly.
Evidence with respect to defaults suggests that its effects are likely to be real and
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pervasive. DefaultsDefault options can exert a significant influence on behavior. Compared to
the non-enrollment default, governments that presume citizens as willing organ donors have
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markedly higher donation rates (Abadie & Gay, 2006; Johnson & Goldstein, 2003); companies
with automatic 401(k) enrollment have more employees who save for retirement (Madrian &
Shea, 2001); cities with “green” electricity defaults have lower energy usage (Pichert &
Katsikopoulos, 2008); and states with limited tort default have drivers who pay lower insurance
premiums (Johnson, Hershey, Meszaros, & Kunreuther, 1993). Default effects have also been
observed in the use of advanced medical directives, internet privacy preferences, legal contracts,
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medical vaccine adherence, and even for how psychologists choose to analyze their data
(Bellman, Johnson, and Lohse, 2001; Chapman, Li, Colby, and Yoon, 2010; Fabrigar, Wegener,
MacCallum, and Strahan, 1999; Johnson, Bellman, and Lohse, 2002; Korobkin, 1998; Kressel,
Chapman, and Leventhal, 2007; Young, Monin, and Owens, 2009).
Thus, defaults matter and their appeal is considered so strong that it has been
calledreferred to as the “iron law of default inertia” (Ayres, 2006: 5). Their influence is due in
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large part to the following fundamental reasons:
1. Implied Endorsement. People sometimes treat defaults as a form of implicit advice.
When choice architects have explicitly chosen the default, consumers tend to believe that
they should not depart from it unless they have information that would justify a change
(McKenzie, Liersch, and Finkelstein, 2006). Consumers assume that the default was
chosen as providing the typically best choice (Madrian and Shea, 2001).
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2. Effort. Default effects are also partially due to effort (Samuelson and Zeckhauser, 1988).
Making a decision involves effort, whereas accepting the default is easy. To alter the
default rule, people must make an active choice to reject that rule. Especially (but not
only) if the question is difficult, technical, or with social implications it is less taxing to
defer the decision by accepting the default.
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3. Status quo. Defaults, by design represent the existing state or status quo. The status quo
bias is a psychological principle which involves the propensity of decision makers to
keep things the way they are (Samuelson and Zeckhauser, 1988) often leading humans to
make choices that guarantee that things remain the same, or change as little as possible.
This preference results in inertia.
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Defaults do not force anyone to do anything. On the contrary, they maintain freedom of
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choice. Whether people opt out or opt in, they are permitted to do so as they see fit. Default
rules nonetheless have a large impact, because they tend to stick (Johnson and Goldstein, 2004).
Defaults can be valuable and worth a fight. For example, search engines like Google and MSN
want their browser to be the default preloaded on computers and go to court to preserve such
status so as to garner more of the roughly $20 billion search-advertisement market (Kesan &
Shah, 2006).
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NEGATIVE OPTION MARKETING
Marketers have exploited the power of defaults withwithin a NOM framework where the
consumer’s failure to reject or cancel an offer (i.e., to act) signals consent. NOM, also referred
to as advance consent marketing, automatic renewals, continuous-service agreements, unsolicited
marketing, inertia selling, “free trial” offers, or “book-of-the-month” type plans, uses defaults to
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take advantage of the tendency toward the status quo and inaction to achieve marketing
objectives (Sunstein, 2013). NOM requires that consumers take action so as to not purchase the
product or service (Licata and Von Bergen, 2007); i.e., consumers must overtly opt out.). NOM
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incorporates an opt-out default in which consent is presumed and where not explicitly making a
choice, doing nothing, or being silent means agreement. Individuals must explicitly become
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involved and take steps to prevent the default from occurring and the sale from consummating
(Lamont, 1995).
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Four types of plans generally fall within the NOM category: pre-notification negative
option plans; continuity plans; automatic renewals; and free-to-pay or nominal fee-to-pay
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conversion plans (U.S. Federal Trade Commission, 2009). First, in prenotificationpre-
notification plans, such as book, wine, or music clubs, sellers send periodic notices offering
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goods. If consumers take no action, sellers send the goods and charge consumers. Second, in
continuity plans, consumers agree in advance to receive periodic shipments of goods or provision
of services, which they continue to receive until they cancel the agreement. Third, in automatic
renewals, a magazine seller, for example, may automatically renew a consumer’s subscription
when it expires and charge for it, unless the consumer cancels the subscription. Finally, sellers
also structure trial offers as free-to-pay, or nominal-fee-to-pay, conversions, such as receiving
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free premium cable channels for 60 days. In these plans, consumers receive goods or services for
free (or at a nominal fee) for a trial period. After the trial period, sellers automatically begin
charging a fee (or higher fee) unless consumers affirmatively cancel or return the goods or
services.
In the case of NOSM, the marketer uses defaults to encourage “virtuous” behavior, even
if the subject would not normally explicitly choose to engage in that behavior. Under NOSM,
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which uses an opt-out default in which consent is presumed, not explicitly making a choice,
doing nothing, or being silent means agreement, and individuals must explicitly become
involved and take steps to prevent the default from occurring (Lamont, 1995). The present
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study defines negative option social marketing (NOSM) as engineering people’s choices so as to
channel them through the use of defaults or opt-out marketing to make more socially desirable
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decisions (from the perspective of the policy maker) without substantively limiting their choice.
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AnotherAn example of a NOSM program is thea “carbon off-set” scheme by Qantas
Airlines which “encourages” their customers to make a more environmentally friendly decision
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by a opt out donation to an approved organization that uses the funds to allegedly offset the
passenger’s share of flight emissions each time they fly by some form of carbon sequestration
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action. Customers who do not wish pay the extra fee must explicitly opt out of the purchase of
the carbon off-set during the on-line transaction. The present study defines NOSM as
engineering people’s choices so as to channel them through the use of defaults or opt-out
marketing to make more socially desirable decisions (from the perspective of the policymaker)
without substantively limiting their choice, as illustrated by the Qantas “carbon off-set” program.
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Journal of Social Marketing
ETHICS OF NEGATIVE OPTION SOCIAL MARKETING
Influencing behavior is central to social marketing. It is nothing new to governments,
which have often used tools such as legislation, regulation, or taxation to achieve desired policy
outcomes, nor to marketers which have employed numerous advertising promotions to guide
people’s behavior. But it is now being used by nations in social marketing campaigns to warn of
the dangers of obesity or the problem of domestic violence to achieve desired policy outcomes
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using nudges. NOSM nudges have garnered increased attention primarily because its
techniques—often involving relatively minor and subtle changes to processes, forms, and
language—have provided policy makerspolicymakers a potentially potent new set of tools to
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influence citizen choices and behavior so as to manageshape individual behavior.
The increased use of such NOSM has raised a number of ethical concerns, including the:
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(1) a re-conceptualization of the “state-individual relationship,” (MenardMénard 2010: 229),
suggestionssuggesting that policymakers assume that “the masses are too stupid to make good
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decisions for themselves (Selinger and Whyte 2011: 928), or); and (2) that nudges undermine the
trust in patient-physician relationships or exploit power-differences in particularly in vulnerable
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populations (Blumenthal-Barby and Burroughs, 2012). Hansen and Jespersen (2013: 5) note
that social nudges nudging
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“seems to make the approach incompatible with public policy makingpolicymaking in a
modern democracy. Indeed, state manipulation with the choices of citizens appears to be
at odds with the democratic ideals of free exercise of choice, deliberation, and public
dialogue.”
Likewise, Haug and Busch (2013) identify a lack of clarity pertaining to the ethical dimensions
of nudges, suggesting the need for an ethical framework.
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Likewise, theseThese ethical concerns about NOSM appear to be consistent with a notion
voiced by former U. S. President John Kennedy in a speech to Congress, that consumers have the
right to freedom of choice. President Kennedy (1962) said that:
“Marketing is increasingly impersonal. Consumer choice is influenced by mass
advertising utilizing highly developed arts of persuasion…. Additional legislative
and administrative action is required, however, if the federal Government is to meet
its responsibility to consumers in the exercise of their rights. These rights include:
1. The right to safety…
2. The right to be informed…
3. The right to choose…
4. The right to be heard….”
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This Consumer Bill of Rights as it has become known can be used to suggest ethical
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issues that may arise with the implementation of NOSM techniques as a tool of social policy.
For example, would a consumer who does not want to support a specific social cause be truly
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free to choose under the conditions of a social nudge’s choice architecture without incurring
either pecuniary or non-pecuniary costs over and above those faced by consumers making a more
socially desirable decision? If NOSM techniques were used the answer is yes, the consumer
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making the less socially desirable choice could face more effort, time or even pecuniary costs.
The ethical concerns that are associated with the use of NOSM can also be evaluated
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using Hunt and Vitell’s (1986, 1993, 2006) general theory of marketing ethics. The Hunt-Vitell
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(1986, 1993, 2006) theory suggests that ethical decision making is ultimately judged at the nexus
of deontological (the behavioral means) and teleological (the outcomes or “desired end states”)
evaluations that are influenced by cultural, individual, industry, and the organizational
environments coupled with the personal characteristics of the decision maker and are an
antecedentsantecedent to ethical judgments. When both the means and ends of the act result in
social good, that is, that no one is made worse off (see Arrow, 1950), then) the act is deemed
ethical. This theory can be used to explain the ethical implications of NOSM. Figure 1 adapts a
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simplified model of the Hunt-Vitell (1986, 1993, 2006) theory to the context of NOSM as an
illustration. Table 1 provides a summary of the interrelationship between NOSM and the
Consumer Bill of Rights evaluated by the Hunt and Vitell (1986, 1993, 2006) framework.
--------------------------------------Inset FIGURE 1 about here
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--------------------------------------Insert TABLE 1 about here
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NOSM violates the spirit of Kennedy’s (1962) Consumer Bill of Rights by making the
pecuniary and non-pecuniary costs of the public actively choosing higher than simply accepting
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the nudge. NOSM makes some worse off by increasing their costs to express their choice. For
example, when NOSM is used to support a vaccination campaign, there is a very small number
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of vaccine recipients that will be harmed by the vaccine. By increasing the time, effort, and
potentially financial costs of making a choice, NOSM forces the choice architects’policy makers’
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values on the consumerpublic, potentially diminishing the safety, and rights of some individuals,
often a small minority of the public, to be safe, to choose, to be informed, and to be heard.
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Likewise, when defaults have an effect because consumers are not aware that they have
choices, or because the transaction costs of changing from the default are onerous, NOSM
marketing may be ethically problematic. Schwartz (2005: 39) proposes a set of “universal moral
values” which include: (1) trustworthiness; (2) respect; (3) responsibility; (4) fairness; (5) caring;
and (6) citizenship. Similarly, the American Marketing Association’s (AMA’s) Statement of
Ethics (2014) appear to largely capture theSchwartz’s domain of Schwartz (2005) with the
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following norms: (1) do no harm; (2) foster trust in the marketing system; and (3) embrace the
ethical values of honesty, responsibility, fairness, respect, transparency, and citizenship. The
implication of NOSM may be problematic as the use of NOSM may foster distrust by the public
and seems to be at odds with the mandate to “embrace, communicate, and practice the
fundamental ethical values that will improve consumer confidence in the integrity of the
marketing exchange system” (AMA, 2014).
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Specifically, NOSM may violate AMA’s basic values which include: (1) honesty; (2)
responsibility; (3) fairness; (4) respect; (5) transparency; and (6) citizenship. Honesty requires
the social marketer “to be truthful and forthright in our… dealings with customers and
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stakeholders;” and “tell the truth in all situations and at all times.” Additionally, NOSM works
best in the dark and may be implicitly dishonest, violating any semblance of transparency.
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Responsibility and respect suggest that the social marketer must both “recognize our special
commitments to vulnerable market segments such as children, seniors, the economically
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impoverished, market illiterates and others who may be substantially disadvantaged…and avoid
using coercion with all stakeholders,”(AMA, 2014). On the other hand NOSM encouragesforces
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those with different values from the choice architects to pay a cost in time, effort, or even money
if they wish to actually exercise their choice. Fairness requires that social marketers represent
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their ideas or products in a fair and clear manner with the aim to truthfully communicate the
attributes, avoiding conflicts of interest, or marketer manipulation. Social marketers under the
AMA (2014) Statement of Ethics also have the obligation to be good citizens. Table 2 provides
a summary of the interrelationship between NOSM and marketing ethics.
--------------------------------------Insert TABLE 2 about here
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Journal of Social Marketing
--------------------------------------The more specific ethical criticisms of nudging (and defaults) have included: (1) lack of
transparency; and, (2) a negative impact on poor and low income people. Nudging and defaults
work by implicitly “manipulating people’s choices” (Bovens, 2009: 19; Vallgårda, 2012: 201)
and behavior (Hansen and Jespersen, 2013), and this is inherently unethicalhas ethical
implications because of its lack of transparency. For example, Bovens (2009: 209) has
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questioned the ethics of nudges because they :
“… typically work better in the dark. If we tell students that the order of the food in the
Cafeteria is rearranged for dietary purposes, then the intervention may be less
successful.”
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While the consensus appears to be that choice architecture tendsnudges tend to work best
when people are unaware that a nudgeit is influencing their behavior (Selinger and Whyte,
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2010), recent research by Loewenstein, Bryce, Hagmann, and Rajpal (2014) seems to complicate
the matter. These researchers found, in the context of end-of-life care choices, that even when
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individuals are explicitly informed that a default rule is in place, and that it has been chosen
because it affects people’s decisions, there is essentially no effect on what people do which
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suggests that people are not uncomfortable with defaults, even when they are made aware that
choice architects have selected them, and do so because of their significant effect. Clearly
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further research is needed, specifically when NOSM is used in high involvement decisions such
as medical care choices.
The second specific ethical concern is that certain vulnerable groups may be particularly
sensitive to defaults. Some research (e.g., Brown, Farrell, and Weisbenner, 2012) has found that
minorities and the poor and other less “sophisticated” participants—those with lower education
levels, who are less confident in their skills in a given context, and who hadhave lower levels of
15
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knowledge about specific plan parameters—are more influenced by defaults. This suggests that
certain at risk individuals are less likely to opt out of the default and are more susceptible to
defaults even when it is relatively inappropriate for them and further negatively impacts their
already modest economic wellbeing. This finding, if supported by further research, suggests that
such individuals may be more influenced byAccording to Mani, Mullainathan, Shafir, and Zhao
(2013) this may happen because poverty-related concerns consume mental resources, leaving
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less for other tasks—like evaluating the appropriateness of defaults, and leaving them more
vulnerable to unscrupulous social marketers using NOSM schemes.
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SUMMARY
This paper has explored NOSM and how it relates to both the AMA Statement of
er
Marketing Ethics and President Kennedy’s Consumer Bill of Rights using the Hunt-Vitell (1986,
1993, 2006) general theory of marketing ethics and an evaluative framework. NOSM’s power to
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influence choice seems at odds with both the Consumer Bill of Rights and the AMA Statement
of Marketing Ethics, underlined by Schwartz’s (2005) statement of universal human values.
vi
These frameworks suggestmandate respectful, open, fair, and honest communication allowing
for true freedom of choice. It appears that the use of NOSM to achieve public policy objectives
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falls short of the standards set by these frameworks when evaluated by the Hunt-Vitell (1986,
1993, 2006) general theory of marketing ethics protocol, thereby and answering one of
Spotswood et al.’s (2012) “uncomfortable questions”—“(S)hould social marketers use implicit
(rather than explicit) behavior change techniques?” The answer is quite clearly no.
Choice architecture—the design of the context in which decisions are made—can
“nudge” individuals towards a particular outcome. An especially powerful tool of choice
architecture is the default—which is the option that is implemented when individuals do not
16
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actively make selections—because individuals are likely to accept the default. Therefore, the
chooser of the default, whether they are policymakers, employers, insurance companies,
governments, researchers, or marketers, is often able to guide people to certain decisions and
choices that they find desirable. A key point, however, is that there is no such thing as a neutral
design (Thaler and Sunstein, 2008). Since choice architecture and its effects cannot be avoided,
it cannot be inherently morally problematic. Some organization or agent must provide starting
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points of one kind or another. A choice architect, whether he or she likes it or not, simply cannot
avoid influencing the decisions and behavior in the context they are responsible for organizing.
Even if a design is unthinking, its consequences are not neutral. Opt-out defaults in social
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marketing are founded on the erroneous logic that “silence means consent.”
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References
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Figure 1
Adapting the Hunt-Vitell (1986, 1993, 2006) Theory of Ethics to NOSM
Formatted: Font: (Default) Times New
Roman, 12 pt, Bold
Deontoligical evaluation of
percived social problem (are
the means ethical?)
Are both the means and ends
socially "good?" - If not then
the act is not ethical
EVALUATION OF THE ETHICAL
DIMENSIONS OF NOSM
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Antecedent Enviroment
(culture, regulatory
institutions, individual values)
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Teleological evaluation of
percived consequences (are
the outcomes desirable from
a social "good" perspective?)
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EVALUATION OF THE ETHICAL
DIMENSIONS OF NOSM
Teleological evaluation of
percived consequences (are
the outcomes desirable from
a social "good" perspective?)
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Antecedent Enviroment
(culture, regulatory
institutions, individual values)
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Deontoligical evaluation of
percived social problem (are
the means ethical?)
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Are both the means and ends
socially "good?" - If not then
the act is not ethical
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TABLE 1
KENNEDY’S (1962) CONSUMER BILL OR RIGHTS AND THE IMPLICATIONS
OF NOSM EVAULTATED BY THE HUNT-VITELL (1986, 1993, 2006) THEORY
OF MARKETING ETHICS
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CONSUMER DEONTOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS – ARE THE
RIGHT
MEANS1 OF NOSM GOOD
TO SAFETY
The low Effort dimension of NOSM nudges may result in
low involvement with the issue by the public.
TO
CHOOSE
The power of maintaining the Status Quo may imply that
there is no need to become informed on an issue.
The Implied Endorsement could reduce the probability of
making an active choice.
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The notion of the nudge being the part of the Status Quo
may imply a safe choice when that is not the case for that
specific individual
The Implied Endorsement could reduce the probability of
information search.
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The Implied Endorsement by an expert means of NOSM
could reduce the probability of a consumer critically
evaluating an option.
The choice architecture design of low Effort may
discourage the consumer exploring “safer” alternatives.
TO BE
INFORMED
TELEOLOGICAL
IMPLICATIONS –
ARE THE ENDS
GOOD
Choices made due to
NOSM could reduce
safety for some
individuals, while
enhancing the
publics’ mean level of
“social welfare.”
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NOSM may constrain
consumer information
search and result in a
less educated public.
Freedom of choice is
constrained by the
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The low Effort dimension of NOSM nudges may result in
many members of the public abdicating their right to
choose in favor of the nudge’s lower time and efforts
demands.
TO BE
HEARD
The Status Quo as the “correct choice” implies that there is
no need to choose for your-self.
The Implied Endorsement may diminish any dissent.
The low Effort dimension of NOSM nudges may encourage
the public not to speak out.
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marginal pecuniary
and non-pecuniary
costs of choice.
NOSM increases the
costs of “being heard”
and may reduce the
voice of the consumer
in the market place
The Status Quo may in fact silence most other voices.
1: adapted from Ayres (2006)
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TABLE 2
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AMERICAN MARKETING ASSOCIATION’S (AMA’S) STATEMENT OF
MARKETING ETHICS (2014) AND THE IMPLICATIONS OF NOSM
EVAULTATED BY THE HUNT-VITELL (1986, 1993, 2006) THEORY
OF MARKETING ETHICS
HONESITY
RESPONSIBILITY
FAIRNESS
The behavior of a social
marketer employing NOSM
is not honest
If the social marketer was
acting in the consumers’ best
interest then NOSM may
positively influence
responsible behavior.
NOSM guides choice to
what is in the best interest of
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TELEOLOGICAL
IMPLICATIONS
If the choice is not in
the consumers’ best
interest, then it could
violate this norm
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FOSTER TRUST IN THE
MARKETING SYSTEM
DEONTOLOGICAL
IMPLICATIONS
If the choice is not in the one
that the consumer would
have made in the absence of
NOSM, then it could violate
this norm
NOSM diminishes the level
of behavior based on trust
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AMA’s ETHICAL NORMS
AND VALUES
DO NO HARM
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The nature of NOSM
would constrain the
public’s trust
The nature of NOSM
would limit an honest
outcome
If the social marketer
was acting in the
consumers’ best interest
then NOSM may
positively influence a
socially desirable
outcome.
Some individuals who
accept the nudge will
Page 46 of 47
Page 47 of 47
RESPECT
TRANSPARENCY
CITIZENSHIP
the “public,” but not always
what is in the best interest of
the individual.
Thaler and Sunstein’s (2008)
“libertarian paternalism”
assumes that the public does
not possess the capacity to
make informed and rational
choices.
By nature NOSM does not
result in transparent behavior
by the social marketer – as
Thaler and Sunstein (2008)
note – nudges work better in
the dark.
The implications of NOSM
in reducing choice also
diminish good citizenship.
r
Fo
make sub-optimal
choices.
NOSM diminishes the
respect that the social
marketer would hold
for the public
For NOSM to be most
effective it cannot be
transparent.
Effective democracies
require active choice.
er
Pe
ew
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Journal of Social Marketing
26