NEGATIVE TRENDS OF DIGITAL MARKETING IN THE CONTEXT OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Abstract

This article examines the negative aspects of digital marketing on the example of some consequences of the application and development of digital technologies in recent years. The main attention is paid to the socio-cultural component. The concept of digital marketing primarily extends to the Internet, and certainly has an impact on it. The consequences of this impact can be both positive and negative, and some of them may not appear immediately, but over time, having a gradual and cumulative nature. Today, digital marketing is no longer an innovation. This type of marketing is becoming usual and commonplace. Marketers, manufacturers and consumers are already accustomed to its positive aspects, but not everyone pays attention to its negative trends. Recognizing such trends and avoiding them is a matter of corporate social responsibility. The websites and apps have successfully invaded the traditional territory of many sectors of the “old economy”. The main negative trends of digital marketing are related to implicit cultural consequences, the transparency illusion and the illusion of control. Marketing problems of a global society are not limited to purely tactical areas, for instance, techniques for maximizing conversions, or promoting a specific product, brand or company. The systematic ignorance of the obvious effects of activity leads to the accumulation of problems, which may threaten the emergence of a crisis in a strategic perspective. If the social responsibility of marketing under certain conditions can hardly be called a competitive advantage in the context of an enterprise’s competitiveness, then in a broader, civilizational view, it is certainly an advantage.