Truth in Marketing

A theory of claim-evidence relations

Thomas Anker, Thomas Boysen Anker

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781138849198
• eBook ISBN: 9781317535058
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Can we believe the claims that marketers make? Does truth in marketing matter? Apparently not…

Despite the role of regulators, marketing claims are often ruled to be misleading, deceptive or incomplete. Surprisingly, scholars of marketing ethics have devoted little time to this key issue. This may be because although key codes of marketing conduct insist on truthful communications, there is only limited understanding of what truthfulness itself actually entails.

This innovative book develops a theory of truth in marketing and discusses the implications for consumers, marketing professionals and policymakers. Focusing on the problem of truth in marketing, it analyses the theory of truth in marketing, and examines the wider significance of marketing truth for society. Using a wide selection of engaging global examples and cases to illustrate this fascinating analysis, this engaging book will provide a provocative read for all scholars and educators in marketing, marketing/business ethics and CSR.

1 Specifying the domain

We can talk of mind, matter, numbers, time, or of what was, or will be, or might have been, and we can talk of mundane things like snow and penguins. And on all these matters, we can say things that are true, or, of course, things that are not true. So what is truth, if propositions from any sphere of interest can equally share it?

Simon Blackburn and Keith Simmons, Truth

1.1 The problem of truth in marketing

There is universal agreement that truthfulness should be a core principle of all types of marketing communications. One example of the unanimous commitment to truthfulness is the International Chamber of Commerce’s (ICC) standards of good marketing practice, known as the ICC Code. Since its inception in 1937, the ICC Code has formed the cornerstone for marketing regulation around the globe and is now operating in 35 countries. Article 1 of the Basic Principles of the ICC Code (ICC 2011) states: “All marketing communications should be legal, decent, honest and truthful.”

Truth in marketing is indisputably a fundamental principle endorsed by all key stakeholders. This observation immediately questions the relevance of this book: why endeavor to develop a theory of truth in marketing when truthfulness already enjoys a central role in marketing regulation?

On the one hand, it is blatantly obvious that truthfulness – or rather the lack thereof – is a significant problem in marketing practice. One of the most telling recent examples is the VW emission scandal. The carmaker fitted vehicles with defeat devices that could identify test conditions and reduce engine capacity during tests and thereby systematically manipulated emission test results for millions of cars. Greenpeace protesters underlined the problem with graphical clarity: demonstrating outside the German headquarters in September 2015, they were carrying signs with the VW logo and the caption “No More Lies” (“Schluss mit Lügen”). It is beyond doubt that truth in marketing is a sizable moral problem. And it is not just an isolated problem correlated with the misconduct of individuals: the VW case demonstrates it to be a systemic problem that sometimes permeates entire multinational corporations. The temptation to deceive even seems to be endemic in that the entire car industry has a history of developing ingenious defeat devices, dating back to the 1970s (Plungis 2015). Yet, the moral problem of truth is not the aim of this book.

On the other hand, truthfulness is also a theoretical problem with substantial implications for marketing practice and regulation. This becomes evident upon analysis of the scope of the ICC Code’s Article 1 quoted above: all marketing communications should be truthful. This sounds straightforward but is anything but: marketing communications comprise a vast range of different types of claims – functional, symbolic, experiential, behavioural – and to agree that these claims should be true is of little use unless one understands how these claims are made true. Are all marketing claims true in the same way? Should a claim like ‘This salmon pate contains Omega 3 acid’ be substantiated in the same way as a symbolic claim in a shampoo ad that associates the use of the product with sexual attractiveness? If yes, what concept of truth allows us to account for this broad range of radically different claims? If no, what different criteria of truth are applicable? These are tough questions, which marketing regulations do not answer. This alethic under-determination implies that the universal commitment to truth in marketing is to a large extent non-operational. This is the epistemological problem of truth in marketing, which this book addresses.

Accordingly, the aim of this exploration is to develop a theory of truth that defines what it is for different types of marketing claims to be true.

1.2 What is a theory of truth in marketing?

The opening section established the need for a theory of truth in marketing. But it did not address the underlying question as to what type of theory is in demand. To answer that question, it is useful to distinguish between two very broad types: propositional and sociological theories of truth.

Roughly, propositional theories hold that truth is analysable in terms of the content of a statement or belief, P, and P’s relationship to the external world or the content of other statements or beliefs. Propositional theories of truth have been discussed since the dawn of Western philosophy. There are explicit discussions of propositional truth in both Plato (Cratylos 385b2; Sophist 263b) and Aristotle (Metaphysics 1011b25), and it continues to be a key topic in contemporary epistemology.¹ The aim of this book is to develop a propositional theory of truth in marketing. However, the concept of truth has been subject to intense critique in modern sociological theory. And this critique renders the development of a propositional theory of truth in marketing irrelevant. It is therefore necessary to justify the endeavour of this book.

Rather than the alethic function of statements and beliefs, it is the ideological manifestations of truth in contemporary society that is of interest to the sociological critique. In this context, Baudrillard’s studies of the consumer society (1994, 1998) are particularly important. He argues that consumers live in a marketing-constructed reality of signs and symbols (simulacra) that have no reality and that, as a consequence, the notion of truth – in particular the notion of truth in marketing – is a superficial misnomer. Truth in marketing is an oxymoron because the societal function of marketing is to surround citizens with a persuasive narrative that produces the fundamental need to individualize through consumption. Marketing is the particular method of a certain type of societal system to generate the human needs that are necessary for the survival of the system (i.e., capitalism). This is the truth about marketing. To speak of truth in marketing is missing the point.²

Such sociological theories of the role of truth in social systems are relevant to the critique of the foundational premises of those systems. However, any given individual lives within a particular social system: from the internal point of view the external critique of the system may be ideologically relevant, but it has little practical relevance. What makes a true difference is the particular rules of the system that guide, shape and regulate actions within the broad parameters of the system’s cornerstone assumptions.

A propositional theory of truth in marketing is relevant because our actions vis-à-vis consumers are hugely important to us. When brands lie or mislead us, it often has serious implications. To reiterate just one example from the introduction: VW’s decision to fit its cars with devices that rig the tests of exhaust emissions has had profound practical implications: customers suffer financial losses (e.g., depreciation of the value of their cars); public trust in brands, which is crucial to the functioning of liberal societies, is undermined; the company itself is facing multibillion fines and has consequently posted its first losses in more than 15 years, with serious implications for employees and suppliers. Lying to customers hurts.

Surprisingly, studies of truth in marketing conducted from the internal point of view as opposed to the external meta-critique of the ideological function of truth in capitalistic society, has received very little attention. Apart from introductory remarks (e.g., Spence and van Heekeren 2005), there has been no conceptual analysis of truth in marketing in terms of claim–evidence relations.³ This book pioneers the research area by developing a set of alethic criteria specifically designed to evaluate the veracity of propositional claims in marketing. The exploration draws heavily on three propositional theories developed within analytic philosophy: the correspondence, coherence and instrumental theories of truth. Before introducing these theories in the next three chapters, it is necessary to define the basic terminology used throughout the book.

1.3 Constructs of meaning

Marketing expressions and entities

Marketing expressions are theoretical constructs. They are composite units of complex meaning, which synthezise subordinate sets of meaning (claims and propositions) into one brand narrative. They communicate the entirety of meaning associated with a brand, product or service.

A marketing entity is any material or immaterial component of a deliberate marketing effort aimed at a target audience. Expressions are constituted by one or more marketing entities such as an ad, a series of ad or an integrated campaign spanning various channels (social media, print, broadcast, etc.)

Marketing entities are distributed temporally across the context of enquiry: a truth investigation may be limited to a specific point in time such as the truthfulness of a specific billboard ad. Or it may span various time-sections such as a truth investigation into a social media campaign, which encourages consumers to interact with the brand over time. Marketing entities also possess spatial properties: they may be spatially fixed like a one-off sponsorship of a sports event, or spatially distributed via integration of various channels (social media, print, broadcast) cutting across the physical/digital divide and taking place at various locations across the globe. It is the aim and extent of the truth investigation that determines the nature and scope of the marketing entities to be included for analysis.

Accordingly, let a marketing expression be the totality of meaning associated with a brand, product or service, which is conveyed by one or more marketing entities within a specified spatiotemporal domain by means of one or more sets of claims and propositions.

Claims and propositions

A claim makes a general assertion that something is or will be the case, whereas a proposition makes a particular assertion that something is or will be the case. For the purposes of this exploration, the domain of marketing comprises three different types of claims and propositions: functional, symbolic and behavioural.⁴

Functional claims and propositions state or imply that a product or service has certain properties and that consumption or use of the product or service satisfies a specific consumer need (Bhat and Reddy 1998; Guo, Wei Hao, and Shang 2011; Orth and De Marchi 2007; Park, Jaworski, and Maclnnis 1986). For example, Colgate toothpaste claims ‘Cavity protection’ and ‘Contains fluoride’ and makes the implicit suggestion that it ‘Strengthens the tooth enamel.’ These are clear-cut functional claims and propositions. Functional needs may be simple (such as the need for cavity protection) or very complex (for example, how to analyze big data sets). Functional properties may be material (‘this watch is water resistant to 50 atm’) or immaterial (a consultancy promising to increase your business’s profitability).

Symbolic claims and propositions state or imply that using a specific product or service will associate the consumer with desirable social values (Bhat and Reddy 1998; Lee 2013; Park, Jaworski, and Maclnnis 1986). Symbolic claims and propositions thereby address a wide range of psychological and emotional needs. For example, research in the field of consumer culture theory (Annamma and Li 2012; Arnould and Thompson 2005; Schembri, Merrilees, and Kristiansen 2010) demonstrates how consumers use brands as narrative material to construct and express self-identity and signal group belonging. Think of Apple’s iconic iPod ads featuring silhouettes – black against a yellow, green, red or blue monochrome background – of young people dancing by themselves with iPods in their hands. These ads clearly associate the product with symbolic values of self-confident self-expression and aim at influencing the target audience to associate with the lifestyle values expressed in the ads.

Traditionally, the distinction between different types of marketing claims also includes experiential claims (Park, Jaworski, and Maclnnis 1986). There are two reasons why the theory of truth in marketing operates with the notion of behavioural claims and propositions rather than experiential. First, Park, Jaworski and MacInnis (1986) define experiential claims in terms of consumer needs for sensory and cognitive stimulation. These needs are clearly different from functional needs, such as the need for waterproof clothing when walking in the hills on a rainy day. Yet, sensory and cognitive stimulation are to a large extent product dependent: an ice cream tastes delicious because of the composition of ingredients; a movie is exciting because it has a gripping storyline; reading the Financial Times provides cognitive stimulation (to some, at least) because the articles are well researched. In these examples, the experiential benefits are driven by the functional properties of the products. In terms of truth evaluations, experiential claims seem reducible to some type of functional claim and thereby do not manifest as a separate category.

Second, the traditional distinction between functional, symbolic and experiential cannot accommodate the behavioural dimension of many brand expressions. As Anker et al. (2012, 2015) point out, some marketing claims have a strong behavioural component, meaning that the brand can only deliver on its promise insofar as the consumer engages with the brand and adopts certain courses of action as specified by the brand. This is, for example, the case with health brands (like Kellogg’s Special K) that claim to help consumers to lead a healthy lifestyle. Consumption of a given product cannot make a consumer healthy, as food-related health is a complex function of a varied diet. Health brands that make general claims about improving or maintaining health therefore have to engage consumers in wider, health-conducive courses of actions (Anker et al. 2011).

Behavioural claims of this sort are normal encounters in the marketplace. For example, brands that promise to facilitate creativity (Apple), enhance physical performance (Nike, Adidas, Puma, Lucozade), or improve the base...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of figures and tables
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Specifying the domain
• 2 The classical pragmatic theory of truth
• 3 The correspondence criterion of truth
• 4 The coherence criterion of truth
• 5 The instrumental criterion of truth
• 6 Alethic pluralism
• References
• Index