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.
A few remarks. The PDI is the investigation branch, the detectives, not the police as such (Carabineros). In the past the PDI were civilians and the Carabineros military, now both are organized under the Ministry of Interior. Look beyond the need to “correct a public image of the PDI”. Could it be that the PDI needs more candidates? Just as the military are advertising as well. You have a point where the style of the PDI in their commercials is quite different compared to the FBI probably. Cultural diferences matter here. Ask people in your environment about their perception of the PDI and the commercials.
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