MRKT 640 Week 8 DB Forum 8 Example

Discussion Board Forum 8: Thread and Two Replies

MRKT 640 Consumer Behavior, Discussion Board Forum 8 (thread and two replies)

Thread by [Student Name]

The prompt, the game studio and the classmates' posts are composites standing in for the course's own forum; the textbook, Scripture and published studies are real; the requirements follow Liberty's public course guide for MRKT 640.

Thread

A small game studio has released a cartoon farming game rated for ages six and up. Players grow crops and raise animals, and the game moves slowly unless players spend gems, which speed up harvests and unlock rare animals. Gems come with play, but slowly; they can also be bought in packs from $1.99 to $49.99, and the purchase screen shows a sparkling chest with a countdown timer that reads "Special offer ends in 10:00." Most players are between six and nine. Chapter 20 of Mothersbaugh and Hawkins (2016) asks how marketing to children should be regulated given what is known about their ability to understand it, and this game is a direct test.

John (1999), reviewing twenty-five years of research on consumer socialization, described children moving through stages: a perceptual stage from about three to seven, in which children focus on surface features; an analytical stage from about seven to eleven, in which they begin to think about underlying functions and motives; and a reflective stage from about eleven to sixteen, in which they understand social and persuasive meanings. Children generally begin to recognize that advertising is meant to persuade around age seven or eight, and even then they may not use that knowledge to defend themselves unless prompted. A six-year-old who sees a sparkling chest and a countdown sees a treasure and a race, not a sales technique.

Calvert (2008), reviewing advertising and marketing to children, noted that digital media blur the line between content and advertising, so that marketing appears inside the games and sites children use rather than in separate commercials that children can learn to recognize. The gem chest in the farming game is exactly that kind of embedded marketing: it is part of the play. Calvert also described how children's limited understanding of persuasion has been the basis for special protections, including limits on advertising during children's television and rules on collecting children's personal information online.

The textbook explains that regulation of marketing to children rests on two concerns, children's ability to understand marketing messages and the content of those messages, and that self-regulation by industry operates alongside government rules. The game raises both concerns. Its youngest players cannot reliably recognize the chest as an advertisement, and the countdown timer adds urgency that even adults find hard to resist. The prices also sit behind a layer of make-believe money. A child who spends 500 gems may have no idea that the gems cost a parent $19.99, which separates the purchase from the sense of cost the textbook treats as part of any rational decision.

I would recommend four changes. First, remove countdown timers and limited-time offers from any screen children see. Second, require a parent's password for every purchase, not only the first, and send a receipt to the parent's email. Third, label purchase screens plainly, with the price in dollars rather than in gems. Fourth, cap purchases at a modest weekly amount unless a parent raises the limit. The studio should adopt these changes voluntarily rather than waiting for a regulator, because they match what research shows children can and cannot understand, and because a game that parents trust will keep its players longer. Parents who find a surprise charge of $49.99 on a statement tend to delete the game, post a review and warn other parents, which costs the studio far more than the sale was worth.

Jesus warned that whoever causes one of the little ones who believe in him to stumble would be better off thrown into the sea with a millstone around his neck (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, Matthew 18:6). The warning shows how seriously Scripture takes harm done to children. A company that profits from children's inability to see a sales pitch for what it is uses their innocence against them, and no revenue justifies that.

Classmates: should rules like these apply to games that are rated for all ages but played mostly by children, and who should decide which games those are?

Reply to Lauren

Lauren, your thread on the household cleaner advertised as "eco-friendly" and "natural" despite containing ingredients of environmental concern was a clear example of what chapter 20 calls misleading claims. You recommended that the Federal Trade Commission enforce its Green Guides more aggressively. I agree, and research on greenwashing helps explain why enforcement alone may not be enough.

For Delmas and Burbano (2011), a firm greenwashes when it talks up an environmental record that is in fact weak. They identify drivers at several levels: external drivers, including regulation and pressure from consumers and investors; organizational drivers, such as incentives and communication between departments; and individual drivers, such as optimism about what the company will achieve. They argue that lax and uncertain regulation in the United States is a key external driver, because companies face little risk when their claims are vague. Your cleaner's claims, "eco-friendly" and "natural," are exactly the vague terms that are hard to enforce.

A complementary remedy comes from the consumer side. In an experiment (Parguel et al., 2011), the researchers found that independent sustainability ratings helped consumers judge companies' environmental communications, so that a company with a poor rating gained little from its positive claims. This suggests that third-party information can do some of the work regulators cannot, by giving consumers a reference point for judging claims. For your cleaner, an independent ingredient rating displayed beside the product online would make the "eco-friendly" label far less persuasive if the rating were poor.

Mothersbaugh and Hawkins (2016) note that consumers often rely on simple cues when they lack time or knowledge, and environmental labels are such cues. That is why misleading green claims are effective and why they harm the consumers who most want to do the right thing. A shopper who pays more for a cleaner labeled "natural" is paying for a benefit that may not exist, and over time repeated disappointments of this kind could teach consumers to ignore every environmental claim, including the honest ones. Greenwashing therefore hurts honest competitors as well as buyers.

When Paul handled the gift collected for Jerusalem, he took care that his conduct would look right to God and to any observer as well (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, 2 Corinthians 8:21). His standard applies to environmental claims. A company that claims environmental virtue should be able to show it to anyone who checks, and a Christian marketer should refuse to use labels that would not survive an honest inspection.

Did your research show whether the cleaner's sales depended on the green claims? If they did, would the company have a business reason, as well as an ethical one, to earn a credible third-party rating? A reformulated product with a strong rating might win back the shoppers that the vague label eventually loses.

Reply to Victor

Victor, your thread on menu calorie labeling argued that the federal requirement for chain restaurants to post calories is a model of good regulation because it gives consumers the information they need to choose. Chapter 20 describes consumer information as one of the main tools of regulation for adult consumers, and I agree that the principle is sound. The evidence on effects, though, suggests that information alone changes less than we might hope.

Elbel et al. (2009) studied fast-food customers in low-income neighborhoods of New York City before and after the city required calorie labels. About 28 percent of customers who noticed the labels said the information influenced their choices, yet the researchers found no detectable change in the calories purchased compared with customers in a city without labels. Noticing information and acting on it turned out to be different things, at least in the first weeks after the rule took effect and among customers with limited budgets.

Reviewing calorie labeling and its modified forms systematically, Bleich et al. (2017) found the evidence on consumer behavior mixed, with many studies showing small or no reductions in calories purchased, while some evidence suggested that restaurants responded to labeling by introducing lower-calorie items. That second effect may be the more important one: the regulation may work less by changing consumers' choices than by changing what restaurants offer.

This connects to the textbook's discussion of information processing. A diner in a hurry, ordering from a crowded menu board, may not process a number that requires effort to interpret. Modified labels, such as ones that show how many minutes of walking a meal requires or that flag lower-calorie options, try to make the information easier to use. Whether they work better is still being tested, but the logic follows the course's theme: a message succeeds only if consumers can attend to it, understand it and relate it to their own goals in the few seconds they spend at the counter. A number on a menu board meets the first condition but not always the other two.

When Daniel asked to be given vegetables and water instead of the king's food, he proposed a ten-day test and let the results speak (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, Daniel 1:12-15). Good regulation can follow the same approach, testing whether a rule actually changes outcomes and adjusting it if it does not, rather than assuming that information is enough.

Would your recommendation change if the main benefit of calorie labels turned out to be healthier menus rather than healthier choices? It might suggest measuring restaurant reformulation as a goal of the policy, alongside what customers order, so that the regulation is judged by all of the outcomes it produces.

References

Bleich, S. N., Economos, C. D., Spiker, M. L., Vercammen, K. A., VanEpps, E. M., Block, J. P., Elbel, B., Story, M., & Roberto, C. A. (2017). A systematic review of calorie labeling and modified calorie labeling interventions: Impact on consumer and restaurant behavior. Obesity, 25(12), 2018-2044. https://doi.org/10.1002/oby.21940

Calvert, S. L. (2008). Children as consumers: Advertising and marketing. The Future of Children, 18(1), 205-234. https://doi.org/10.1353/foc.0.0001

Delmas, M. A., & Burbano, V. C. (2011). The drivers of greenwashing. California Management Review, 54(1), 64-87. https://doi.org/10.1525/cmr.2011.54.1.64

Elbel, B., Kersh, R., Brescoll, V. L., & Dixon, L. B. (2009). Calorie labeling and food choices: A first look at the effects on low-income people in New York City. Health Affairs, 28(6), w1110-w1121. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.28.6.w1110

English Standard Version Bible. (2016). Crossway. (Original work published 2001)

John, D. R. (1999). Consumer socialization of children: A retrospective look at twenty-five years of research. Journal of Consumer Research, 26(3), 183-213. https://doi.org/10.1086/209559

Mothersbaugh, D. L., & Hawkins, D. I. (2016). Consumer behavior: Building marketing strategy (13th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.

Parguel, B., Benoît-Moreau, F., & Larceneux, F. (2011). How sustainability ratings might deter "greenwashing": A closer look at ethical corporate communication. Journal of Business Ethics, 102(1), 15-28. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-011-0901-2