The question of how marketing can improve consumers’ lives has vexed marketers and philosophers throughout the ages. Fordham’s marketing department takes aim at that issue with the launch of theCenter for Positive Marketing (CPM), the University’s newest research center.
Unlike other research centers, most of which focus on the supply side of consumption — the marketers’ perspective — CPM will focus on the demand side. By examining marketing from the perspective of the consumer, CPM hopes to uphold marketing as a force for satisfying needs while also providing positive outcomes.
“Marketing is one of the main ties that binds the themes of globalization of, and social responsibility in, business,” said the center’s director, Dawn Lerman, associate professor and area chair of marketing. “Fordham’s Jesuit mission and the caliber of its business schools make the University uniquely positioned to house this type of research center and to explore these themes.”
Led by Lerman, along with Associate Professor of Marketing Marcia Flicker and Assistant Professor of Marketing Luke Kachersky, the Center seeks to be the premier resource for information on the impact of marketing on consumers and society. It already possesses the immediate advantage of harnessing the collective expertise of the marketing faculty.
Future plans include establishing an executive-in-residence program, funding research fellowships, developing a survey and index on consumer well-being, holding an annual conference and convening roundtables and seminars.
“We start from the premise that marketing exists to improve peoples’ lives,” Lerman said. “One of the issues that we can examine, for example, is how the plethora of choice has made us less-efficient decision makers.”
