Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T20:38:15.027Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Marketing to Inner-City Blacks: PowerMaster and Moral Responsibility

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

George G. Brenkert
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

PowerMaster was a malt liquor which Heileman Brewing Company sought to market to inner-city blacks in the early 1990s. Due to widespread opposition, Heileman ceased its marketing of PowerMaster. This paper begins by exploring the moral objections of moral illusion, moral insensitivity and unfair advantage brought against Heileman’s marketing campaign. Within the current market system, it is argued that none of these criticism was clearly justified. Heileman might plausibly claim it was fulfilling its individual moral responsibilities.

Instead, Heileman’s marketing program must be viewed as part of a group of marketing programs which all targeted inner-city blacks. It is argued that those marketers who target this particular market segment constitute a group which is collectively responsible for the harms imposed by their products on inner-city blacks. This responsibility is reducible neither to individual responsibility nor to a shared responsibility. It constitutes a dimension of moral responsibility to which marketers must pay attention.

Type
Articles
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , January 1998 , pp. 1 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bates, Stanley (1971), “The Responsibility of ‘Random Collections’,” Ethics, 81, 343–349.Google Scholar
Benn, Stanley I. (1967), “Freedom and Persuasion,” The Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 45, 259–275.Google Scholar
Brown, Jesse W. (1992), “Marketing Exploitation,” Business and Society Review, Issue 83 (Fall), p. 17.Google Scholar
Colford, Steven W. and Teinowitz, Ira (1991), “Malt liquor ‘power’ failure,” Advertising Age, July 1, pp. 1, 29.Google Scholar
Farhi, Paul (1991), “Surgeon General Hits New Malt Liquor’s Name, Ads,” Washington Post, June 26, pp. A1, A4.Google Scholar
Feinberg, Joel (1974), “Collective Responsibility,” in Doing & Deserving Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 222–251.Google Scholar
Fortune (1991), “Selling Sin to Blacks,” October 21, p. 100.Google Scholar
Freedman, Alix (1991a), “Potent, New Heileman Malt Is Brewing Fierce Industry and Social Criticism,” Wall Street Journal, June 17, pp. B1, B4.Google Scholar
Freedman, Alix. (1991b), “Heileman, Under Pressure, Scuttles PowerMaster Malt,” Wall Street Journal, July 5, pp. B1, B3.Google Scholar
Hardin, Garrett (1968), “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science, 162, 1243–1248.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Held, Virginia (1970), “Can a Random Collection of Individuals Be Morally Responsible?”, The Journal of Philosophy, 67, 471–481.Google Scholar
Horovitz, Bruce (1991), “Brewer Faces Boycott Over Marketing of Potent Malt Liquor,” L.A. Times, June 25, pp. D1, D6.Google Scholar
Lacey, Marc (1992), “Marketing of Malt Liquor Fuels Debate,” L.A. Times, December 15, pp. A32, A34.Google Scholar
May, Larry (1987), The Morality of Groups Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
May, Larry (1992), Sharing Responsibility Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Milloy, Courland (1991), “Race, Beer Don’t Mix,” The Washington Post, July 9, p. B3.Google Scholar
New York Times, The (1991), “The Threat of Power Master,” July 1, p. A12.Google Scholar
Schelling, Thomas (1963), The Strategy of Conflict New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Teinowitz, Ira and Colford, Steven W. (1991), “Targeting Woes in PowerMaster Wake,” Advertising Age, July 8, 1991, p. 35.Google Scholar
“The Beer Institute,” Encyclopedia of Associations (1995), Fischer, Carolyn A. and Schwartz, Carol A (eds.), vol. 1 New York: Gale Research Inc.Google Scholar
Workbook, The (1991), “Marketing Booze to Blacks,” Spring, 16, 18–19.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, Michael J. (1985), “Sharing Responsibility,” American Philosophical Quarterly, 22, 115–122.Google Scholar