Marketing and the Sense of Belonging

Schramm is right in that the sting of poverty was alleviated by entrepreneurship that we would not necessarily define as social entrepreneurship today. However, no one argued that conventional entrepreneurship cannot be good. Clearly, it can.
It is argued, however, that social entrepreneurship is inherently good, whereas entrepreneurship is neither inherently bad nor good.

What do I mean by good? Good is food & water, health care, and a sense of belonging. The latter is a motivation of all humang beings according to social psychology, at least. Marketing, to my mind, always plays on this trick. We all know it in the simplest form of bullying in school if you didn't have the Levis Jeans or at least the slight desire to have these Jeans (whatever your particular brand might have been). Now, that we all have grown up, products and services' value depends still on a sense of belonging in a wider sense. Marketing works through the association you have with the product or service. An association that belongs to a certain group of people such as young, elite, arty, relaxed, professional, conservative, traditional, prudent, useful etc. Note that in the age of individualism it might be impossible to find one person or group of persons resembling one association perfectly well but it is, nevertheless, true that we constitute our independence through the simultaneous belongings to distinct groups that we associate with, just think about what makes you unique in your socialentrepreneurship class and then find your friends or colleagues that share this. Thus, marketing creates value by playing of the universal desire to belong.

Marketing is a problem because it creates a need. Without the prior creation of that need no one would buy the product in its current form talking about consumer objects most obviously. Moreover, the development in car-technology for example and the accompanying value creation is probably not much more as the recurrent creation of new desires through smart marketing. Moreover, marketing would not work if everyone had the same or could get the same, rather it is inherent in the free market to make choices. The opportunity cost resembles this perfectly well. Is there an opportunity cost to health care? Life. That's why Prof. Ney explained to us that health care prizes in the free market would probably too high for anyone to pay.
The concept of opportunity costs, of course, makes only sense in a market where you are not forced by necessity to choose a certain option. Cynically speaking, opportunity cost makes sense only if things are not essential to you anymore.

But why do we choose at all then? Because we find one association more appealing than the other to our identity (our multiple simultaneous belongings to different through media and experience induced imaginary groups). Following this idea, one can group consumers according to their values as has been done very successfully (http://www.sociovision.de/ sinus studies).
Finally, marketing only creates the desire that the conventional entrepreneur of consumer products then satisfies. Watering someone's moulth and then letting him have it sounds like a very simple and succesful of making someone very happy, doesn't it? Ever thrown a stick, after holding it up in the air, waiting for your dog to return it?

Unfortunately, the dog example only holds for the individual. On a societal level there are only so many different sticks and so many different dogs. There are big sticks for big dogs and small sticks for small dogs. Size is the price in EUR or $ you have to pay to get your stick. The stratification of society according to income (see sinus studies) helps you to see who gets what and, presumably, also who thinks badly about someoneelse, assuming that:
1.Consumers buy products that they can identify with (if you don't like the verb „identify with“, use like the associations of)
2.Products have a price.
3.Consumers can be grouped by price paid.

All people are consumers.
All people can be grouped by price paid. (What is your financial aid status at Jacobs?)

People generally prefer in-group over out-group „price paid“ being one grouping principle.
Marketing re-enforces economic stratification through constantly grouping people by price paid.
This kind of conventional entrepreneurship is inherently bad because it only fulfills the desire that it created itself and additionally creates foldlines in society according to purchasing power via marketing. If the products starts telling something about your identity the price will, too. Only in a society with equal income this would not inhibit a universally shared sense of belonging...

The good conventional entrepreneur offers you a deal when he can gain from it and you say yes if you can gain as well (see Adam Smith). The bad conventional entrepreneur does the same thing except that the aggregate marketing of all bad coventional entrepreneurs also tells you that your different from your neighbour because you bought his product. The problem here is that through the mass media allmost all people understand the language of the signifiers (e.g. what does an ipod stand for?) but purchasing power at the same time restricts from which signifiers you may choose for yourself.

The social entrepreneur is different. He is inherently good because he does not create the desire of belonging before he gratifies it. He goes where people have a desire or need already without marketing prior to that. For a social entrepreneur society has created the need. For a social entrepreneur society has done the marketing so to say.