Reviews

A moral lifeline for marketers

Honorable Influence: A Christian’s

Guide to Faithful Marketing. By David Hagenbuch (Aldersgate Press, 2016, $14.99 U.S. 177 pp.)

My wife and I sometimes spar about which one of us is more susceptible to TV ads. I tend to lose such debates. I admit to being curious about the new crossover SUV that promises great fuel economy. And it’s hard for me not to run out and try the latest habanero offering in the fast-food wars.

So when it comes to a key premise of David Hagenbuch’s new book, I should plead guilty. Hagenbuch, professor of marketing at Messiah College in Mechanicsburgh, Pa., contends that marketers have much more influence than most people realize and “might impact you more than any other group.” In fact, “it’s doubtful that any business discipline directly touches as many lives as marketing does.”

Wow. If that’s true, it’s all the sadder that so many of us think poorly of these practitioners. As Hagenbuch shows, marketers get low grades for honesty and ethical standards. “Almost every year, only 10-12 percent of respondents polled by Gallup have rated advertising practitioners as having high or very high morality,” he says. “If you’re a Christian marketer, those results should make you do some soulsearching,” and perhaps even ask, “Can my marketing career really be part of a kingdom calling?”

He wants to help. His purpose here is “to help move the needle on marketing morality and ensure that the field’s impact is more consistently positive.”

It’s helpful to understand what Hagenbuch means by marketing. It is not to cajole anyone into buying something they don’t want. It actually has a noble intent, which often escapes those who denigrate the discipline. At its core, marketing “is the process by which a seller encourages a buyer to participate in a mutually beneficial exchange of products, services, or ideas.” In other words, it’s a win-win transaction, something often lost on critics.

While trying to restore lost luster to an under-appreciated discipline, Hagenbuch does not gloss over shortfalls. Every instance of unethical influence in marketing falls into one of seven areas, he says: 1. Deception: leading another to believe an untruth 2. Coercion: pressuring people to achieve an outcome against their will 3. Manipulation: scheming to achieve an outcome that otherwise would not be chosen 4. Denigration: cheapening the inherent worth of people or things 5. Intrusion: entering another person’s physical or mental space without the other’s complete welcome 6. Encouraging overindulgence: prompting excess beyond what’s beneficial for individuals physically, emotionally, financially, or otherwise. 7. Neglect: not offering the influence that is expected from a competent professional in a given field He carefully unpacks the implications of these “seven sins.” Many consumers will have experienced one or more of them personally, like deception, for example, which is pervasive in marketing but doesn’t have to be.

Understanding these sins can help consumers “more easily identify abuses of marketing influence and hold unscrupulous practitioners accountable.”

Hagenbuch thoughtfully covers “marketing and the church” as well as the general theme of Christian ethics in a secular marketplace. He seeks to provide a balanced perspective on the discipline, urging readers to “identify positive and negative practices in the field and speak out ....[D]on’t fall silent when others claim that all marketing is bad. Remind them in a caring and tactful way of the full scope of the discipline. It’s not just advertising, but also includes product development, distribution, service after the sale, and more.”

He offers two principles to help marketers wield their impact more mindfully: (1) Influence others to their benefit, and (2) “Love your neighbor as yourself (Luke 10:27).”

This book is a must for marketers, and a great read for the rest of us who, like it or not, are in their grip. — Wally Kroeker