MUSINGS

 The American Marketing Association defines marketing as the “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.” This definition recognizes that marketing is an organizational function and set of activities undertaken to bring about exchanges of goods, service, or ideas between people. The definition recognizes that marketing is a philosophical orientation to the practice of doing business. This philosophical orientation emphasizes the satisfaction and value that customers, clients, partners, and society realize due to marketing action. As marketing has evolved, individuals operating in various parts of the field have adopted alternative definitions of sustainable marketing. Marketers have developed sustainable approaches that fundamentally emphasize ecological factors. Consumer researchers, for instance, have focused on the conditions...

  Differences between Traditional and Sustainable Marketing Traditional marketing takes a customer approach and focuses on product, price, place, and promotion for a target audience. Sustainable marketing takes a “stakeholder approach” and considers customers, shareholders, employees, vendors, interest groups, media, and the general public. These groups are interested in the brand’s sustainability agenda, which becomes the focus of the marketing effort. Costco  is an example of a company that takes this kind of approach to its sustainability marketing. Costco describes its sustainability agenda this way: “Sustainability to us is remaining a profitable business while doing the right thing.” Costco honors three sustainability principles: “For Costco to thrive, the world needs to thrive. We are committed to doing our part to help. We focus on issues related to our business and where we can contribute to real, results-driven positive impact. We do not have all of the answers, are ...