2 - Consumer Education or Advocacy … Or Both?

Abstract

This chapter discusses the importance of consumer education. Some business leaders and marketers have anticipated the potential of consumer education as a revolutionary tool, which is capable of making “some major changes in consumer behavior, marketing practices, and public policy toward business.” A major boost to the rapprochement of consumer advocacy and consumer education has been provided by a small discretionary consumer education grant program within the U. S. office of education. Consumer education is the process that arms an individual with the knowledge and self-confidence that is needed to choose to spend and conserve available resources with an eye toward individual satisfaction, market-place efficiency, and the public good. As active as the first model of consumer education is, consumer education as a means of enforcement can be more so. It places the individual consumer in the middle of the marketplace with the potential to exert a powerful influence on numerous transactions. A more cost-effective approach can be enforcement of a law or regulation by the individual consumer.