MM3104: The Dark Side of Marketing

Module code: MM3104

Module provider: Marketing and Reputation; Henley Business School

Credits: 20

Level: 6

When you'll be taught: Semester 2

Module convenor: Dr Irute Karanicholas, email: i.karanicholas@henley.ac.uk

Pre-requisite module(s): BEFORE TAKING THIS MODULE YOU MUST TAKE MM218 OR TAKE AP2SB3 OR TAKE AD2AMM (Compulsory)

Co-requisite module(s):

Pre-requisite or Co-requisite module(s):

Module(s) excluded:

Placement information: NA

Academic year: 2024/5

Available to visiting students: Yes

Talis reading list: Yes

Last updated: 19 November 2024

Overview

Module aims and purpose

The module considers exactly what it says – the dark side of marketing. Marketing is often presented as a solution to business problems. But marketing can itself cause problems for consumers. This module focuses on exploring the conflicting, controversial and moral challenges facing marketing in specific contexts. We will be discussing the non-traditional and unspoken yet critical topics of marketing practice. Our focus areas are those having a global impact and that touch upon pretty much every individual on the planet.?It is an integrative module that combines marketing with other science subjects (eg., nutrition, law and others). This module will explore marketing and its effects on consumers’ physical and mental well-being and alleged exploitation of vulnerable consumers. This module is critical, applied and contemporary. It looks at current issues and asks how you can use your marketing skills to help resolve some practical consumer and societal problems, and how marketing should be transparent, honest and true. We will explore ways to make consumer lives truly better, easier and happier.

This is NOT a traditional or foundational marketing module but one that will challenge the very way you view and think about marketing. In this module we will explore marketing that you perhaps didn’t know existed.

The key underlying principle of the module is to consider the dark side of marketing, including conflicting and controversial marketing, and to question or challenge whether certain marketing practices are moral by asking whether companies are truly considering the best interest of consumers and making their lives better. And how can you, as a future marketer, make marketing a more respected profession, for the benefit of those who work in marketing roles, and, ultimately, for consumers and society as a whole?

The aim is to give students a much deeper and highly critical view of marketing and its impact on consumers and wider society and find ways how to do more marketing that is true and honest and that would enrich consumer lives in this fast-moving world. In other words, making marketing less of a perceived cause of some of consumer’s problems, but rather a solution to them.

Module learning outcomes

The module is designed to more than simply improve your employability skills in marketing, it is designed to provide a really critical view to marketing, challenge the status quo in terms of business and marketing practice, and encourage you to never stop looking for more honest and true ways to conduct marketing, all to make consumer lives better, easier and happier.

By the end of the Module students should be able to:

1. Evaluate marketing impact to the wider society including the impact on most important aspects of consumer lives such as health and overall well-being.
2. Question or challenge whether certain marketing practices are moral and/or ethical by asking whether companies are truly considering the best interest of consumers.
3. Integrate different subjects and look beyond marketing (e.g., bringing science to marketing). As such, developing research skills (as opposed to building knowledge).
4. To be able to find better ways to conduct marketing that is true and honest and support consumers lives, making them happier.

Module content

Provisional topics may include but not limited to (subject to change): 

• The dark side of marketing and how can marketing harm our lives 
• Marketing as a cause or answer to consumer challenges
• Morality in marketing
• Conflicting marketing and marketing paradox
• Manipulation in marketing
• Selling, mis-selling, exaggerating, overstating and misleading
• “Fake news” and marketing – how do consumers trust sources of product information and even search platforms
• “The surveillance society”: Consumers’ need for privacy vs. firms’ desire to know more about their customers surveillance and privacy – how to resolve this apparent dilemma 
• Marketing to vulnerable people, including children, elderly and others
• How do marketers decide what is really in the best interests of consumers?
• And/or any other topics deemed “dark” in marketing

We will explore various sectors as diverse as food, farming, home, beauty, pharmaceuticals, banking, technology (including EMFs), and others.

Structure

Teaching and learning methods

The teaching on this module is heavily practice driven and reliant on various cases. This is not a book-based module.

Study hours

At least 30 hours of scheduled teaching and learning activities will be delivered in person, with the remaining hours for scheduled and self-scheduled teaching and learning activities delivered either in person or online. You will receive further details about how these hours will be delivered before the start of the module.

Please note the independent study hours above are notional numbers of hours; each student will approach studying in different ways. We would advise you to reflect on your learning and the number of hours you are allocating to these tasks.

Semester 1 The hours in this column may include hours during the Christmas holiday period.

Semester 2 The hours in this column may include hours during the Easter holiday period.

Summer The hours in this column will take place during the summer holidays and may be at the start and/or end of the module.

Assessment

Requirements for a pass

Students need to achieve an overall module mark of 40% to pass this module.

Summative assessment

Penalties for late submission of summative assessment

The Support Centres will apply the following penalties for work submitted late:

Assessments with numerical marks

• where the piece of work is submitted after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension to the deadline): 10% of the total marks available for that piece of work will be deducted from the mark for each working day (or part thereof) following the deadline up to a total of three working days;
• the mark awarded due to the imposition of the penalty shall not fall below the threshold pass mark, namely 40% in the case of modules at Levels 4-6 (i.e. undergraduate modules for Parts 1-3) and 50% in the case of Level 7 modules offered as part of an Integrated Masters or taught postgraduate degree programme;
• where the piece of work is awarded a mark below the threshold pass mark prior to any penalty being imposed, and is submitted up to three working days after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension to the deadline), no penalty shall be imposed;
• where the piece of work is submitted more than three working days after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension to the deadline): a mark of zero will be recorded.

Assessments marked Pass/Fail

• where the piece of work is submitted within three working days of the deadline (or any formally agreed extension of the deadline): no penalty will be applied;
• where the piece of work is submitted more than three working days after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension of the deadline): a grade of Fail will be awarded.

The University policy statement on penalties for late submission can be found at: https://www.reading.ac.uk/cqsd/-/media/project/functions/cqsd/documents/qap/penaltiesforlatesubmission.pdf

You are strongly advised to ensure that coursework is submitted by the relevant deadline. You should note that it is advisable to submit work in an unfinished state rather than to fail to submit any work.

Formative assessment

Formative assessment is any task or activity which creates feedback (or feedforward) for you about your learning, but which does not contribute towards your overall module mark.

Students will receive formative feedback in classes, including lectures and practical classes.

Reassessment

Additional costs