The Social Responsibility of the Police

For this week's blog post, I have decided to examine the role of social responsibility in marketing.  The example that I have chosen is not a for-profit corporation though, but a government organization known as the PDI Chilean Police of Investigation.  The Chilean police recently released a new advertising campaign using poster images as their medium.  Here are some examples from the marketing campaign:
http://www.adeevee.com/2014/03/pdi-chilean-police-of-investigation-crew-woman-neighborhood-print/
This idea of police advertising interested me because I have never seen any example of it in the United States, and if the U.S. police departments were to release advertisements, I imagine they would appear very different than these ones.  Our Marketing Principles books explains Social Responsibility by saying, "Consumers today expect companies to act responsibly and to be good citizens(79)".  This makes me wonder why the Chilean police feels a need to release these commercials, as isn't it assumed that their officers act responsibly and are good citizens.  Maybe throughout Chilean history, there have been issues with officers neglecting to present this "socially responsible" image.  Getting to the specifics of the marketing campaign, I noticed quotations that begin with a negative cliche police lines (i.e. "we have them surrounded" or "the chase began and we failed"), but finish with a positive sentence (i.e. "…surrounded with security in their neighborhoods" and "…failed to escape our duty").  This is an attempt to take the old and traditional images of a police force and changing them with bright new ideas.  The colors and drawings on the posters also share this brightness and innocence.  It seems like the Chilean police forces are using marketing to change their brand within the minds of the youth, as there are many  children shown in these images.  This seems like a very different approach to marketing when compared with United States police forces.  Although I have never seen a U.S. Police Department poster, I imagine they would want to maintain their intimidating and controlling brand, instead of showing themselves in a friendlier light.  This interests me because despite the fact that the police forces have very similar jobs in the two distinct countries, they aim to present themselves in extremely different manners.  If police are expected to be the most "socially responsible" people of anyone, then why are they the ones that are concerned with their image.

Mazda's Polycentric Orientation Choices

This week, I chose to examine the principle of Polycentric Orientation, and how it affects the marketing decisions of companies when doing business in different countries.  The idea of Polycentric Orientation is when companies assume each country is its own unique market with its own unique set of values, cultures, and desires.  They utilize their knowledge about each country and make their marketing decisions accordingly.  On my way home from school today, I noticed a Mazda brand pickup, which I have never seen before in my life.  Even though Mazda is a popular car company in the United States, the Mazda BT-50 Pickup Truck has never been available in North America.  I began to wonder why this model was never offered in the United States, as pickup trucks are very popular there.  I think this decision can be attributed to the reputation that Mazda has in the US.  In my country, Mazda is usually viewed as more of a family/female car and I believe that this is why a pickup truck, which is a more masculine vehicle, has never been distributed.  In their American advertising campaigns, they stress fuel efficiency and safety, but in other parts of the world, they demonstrate their power capablities.  Somewhere along the line, Mazda's marketing team must have evaluated the United States and Chile using Polycentric Orientation, and viewed differences in the two markets.  Even though the company remains the same in the two countries, for some reason the brand resonates differently in the minds of the the two consumer groups.  The company marketing team must have made varying choices in their commercials and product designs to create a different brand image for each country group.   Thus, it is important to understand the specific ideals of each market group and use this information to make the most effective marketing decisions.