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The responsibilization of “development consumers” through cause-related

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The responsibilization of “development

consumers” through cause-related marketing
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Amy Kipp & Roberta Hawkins

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CONSUMPTION MARKETS & CULTURE, 2018
https://doi.org/10.1080/10253866.2018.1431221

RESEARCH ARTICLE

The responsibilization of “development consumers” through

cause-related marketing campaigns
Amy Kipp and Roberta Hawkins
Department of Geography, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Cause-related marketing (CRM) campaigns that combine consumption in Received 14 December 2015
the Global North with international development causes in the Global Accepted 3 October 2017
South are an increasingly popular phenomenon, which link consumption
KEYWORDS
by individuals to broader social issues. In this paper, we explore the use of Cause-related marketing;
development-focused CRM campaigns by social enterprises. We highlight social enterprise; neoliberal
the ways in which CRM represents a form of neoliberal consumerism and consumerism; ethical
how the various strategies of social enterprises using CRM produce consumption;
responsibilized consumers. We assert that individuals are transformed responsibilization;
into responsible “development consumers” through the processes of international development
personalization, authorization and capabilization. Throughout this paper,
we focus on how these processes occur through the specific case of CRM.
Ultimately, we examine the potential implications of the production of a
“development consumer” by arguing that the responsibilization processes
used in CRM campaigns are inherently problematic because of the types
of development practices they support.

Introduction
Residents of the Global North are increasingly petitioned to engage with international development
issues through everyday acts of consumption, such as buying fair trade coffee, supporting inter-
national handicraft markets and making purchases at charity shops that support organizations
like Oxfam (Goodman 2010; Ponte and Richey 2014). According to Goodman (2010, 105) this
“developmental consumption” signals the qualitative and quantitative investment in the processes
and politics of (Northern) consumption with the powers of development, fostering “responsible con-
sumers” whom can act as “saviors” when it comes to addressing the world’s development problems.
This paper aims to elucidate how the consumption model of cause-related marketing (CRM) works
to responsibilize consumers engaged in “developmental consumption.”
Broadly defined CRM includes commercial activities that partner a corporation with a social
cause to create benefits for both business and society (Berglind and Nakata 2005). Often the purchase
of a product by a consumer (e.g. a bottle of water) triggers a donation from a company towards a
social cause (e.g. well-building projects in countries in the Global South). In the past several
years, the popularity of this marketing technique has greatly increased and consumers in the Global
North now commonly encounter CRM initiatives (Cone 2013). In fact, 54% of consumers in the
USA stated that they purchased a product associated with CRM in 2013, up from 41% of consumers
participating in CRM in 2010 and 20% in 1993 (Cone 2013). In this study, we specifically focus on
CRM campaigns that support issues related to international development.1

CONTACT Roberta Hawkins rhawkins@uoguelph.ca Department of Geography, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario,
Canada
1
We define international development as a set of material and discursive practices that attempt to understand and address the
social, political, environmental and economic inequalities between and within the Global North and the Global South.
© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 A. KIPP AND R. HAWKINS

The combination of “doing well by doing good” and trendy on-brand products has worked well
for many North American companies, particularly social enterprises (for-profit companies created
with social missions at their core). For example, the popular social enterprise TOMS®2 which donates
a pair of shoes to a child in need each time a consumer purchases a pair of shoes for themselves was
valued at approximately $625 million dollars (USD) (Roumeliotis and Oran 2014). The popularity of
social enterprises, such as TOMS® and their “one-for-one” funding model as well as the consumer
interest supporting these companies, has led to a plethora of studies on the CRM model (e.g. Hamlin
and Wilson 2004; Vanhamme et al. 2012). However, we argue that what is lacking in this literature is
an analysis of the role of CRM in consumer culture as it relates to neoliberal consumerism. Existing
literature on consumer culture has argued that corporations are engaging in governing consumers
through new methods (Beckett 2012) which are both individualizing and totalizing (Yngfalk
2016). Oftentimes these new methods lead to the creation and management of what Giesler and
Veresiu (2014, 840) refer to as the “responsibilization” of consumers, which they argue occurs
through a four-step process that involves: (a) personalization, (b) authorization, (c) capabilization
and ultimately (d) transformation into responsible consumer subjects.
Drawing from this work, we examine the way in which development-focused CRM initiatives
enroll consumers in their campaigns and produce responsibilized “development consumers.” We
argue that the responsibilization of individuals into “development consumers” is inherently proble-
matic because of how these processes simplify development issues, frame consumers as the solution
to development, and maintain markets that reinforce the unequal power dynamic between “devel-
opment consumers” in the Global North and the intended beneficiaries in the Global South.
We begin below by briefly reviewing existing studies that examine how and why neoliberal con-
sumerism promotes the responsibilization of consumers, as well as studies from a critical develop-
ment lens that challenge the use of CRM in supporting international development initiatives. Next,
we outline our research design and identify the social enterprise as an important new actor using
CRM. We then explore how the strategies employed by social enterprises work to responsibilize
“development consumers.” To do this, we draw on Giesler and Veresiu’s (2014) conceptualization
of the responsibilized consumer. Using their model, we trace the specific CRM processes used by
social enterprises to enroll consumers in new development responsibilities. We extend their work
by also examining the potential implications of responsibilizing the “development consumer.” Pay-
ing particular attention to the simplification of international development problems and solutions,
we outline how the processes by which “development consumers” are responsibilized through CRM
are contradictory to what critical development scholars argue is needed for long-term, sustainable
development and as a result require more attention.

Neoliberalism, the responsible consumer and international development

In our previous work, we have found the lens of neoliberalism to be essential in understanding the
model of CRM in which the consumption choices of an individual are framed as the solution to
international development issues (Hawkins 2012; Hawkins and Emel 2014) For the purpose of
this paper, we use a definition of neoliberalism outlined by Shamir (2008), who describes it as “a
complex, often incoherent, unstable and even contradictory set of practices that are organized
around a certain imagination of the ‘market’ as a basis for ‘the universalization of market-based
social relations, with the corresponding penetration in almost every single aspect of our lives of
the discourse and/or the practice of commodification, capital accumulation, and profit making’”
(Shamir 2008, 3; Carvalho and Rodrigues 2006, 342; Wood 1997). Furthermore, we find Amable’s

TOMS® is an example of a social enterprise using CRM. TOMS® has many ‘giving partners,’ donates in over 60 countries and has
2

given away over 10 million shoes (Ponte and Richey 2014, 78). We use TOMS® as an example several times throughout the paper
because it was included in our CRM database and several of the participants referred to TOMS® in some way during their inter-
views. Although TOMS® is but one of the many social enterprises included in our database, it is arguably the most well-known
social enterprise of this type and as a result provides a familiar case study.
 CONSUMPTION MARKETS & CULTURE 3

(2011) emphasis of the competitive principle of neoliberalism and the focus on individual self-
reliance over collective structures useful in thinking through the social enterprises we analyze in
our research. Overall, our understanding of neoliberalism applies to many of the practices currently
underway in consumer culture and in international development. Throughout this section, we
specifically focus on the production of the “responsibilized consumer” as well as “new development
responsibilities” to illustrate how consumption, and CRM specifically, can be considered aspects of
the neoliberalization of international development.

Neoliberal consumerism and the responsible consumer

Neoliberal consumerism can be defined as an increased decentralization of state power and an
increased emphasis on consumer freedom and agency through individual consumption choices
(Yngfalk 2016). It encourages the belief that social, financial and environmental problems (all
inherent to international development) are directly tied to an individual’s consumption choices
(Giesler and Veresiu 2014, 842). As such, neoliberal consumerism recasts individuals as “responsible
consumers” positioning them as “saviors” with the power to solve the world’s development issues
(Goodman 2010, 105).
The responsible consumer does not merely consume but uses consumption to show that they care
about issues of environment, health and society. As a result, through neoliberal consumption citizen-
ship is increasingly being defined in relation to private practices rather than in relation to the state
(Moisander and Eriksson 2006, 272). For example, when worried about the environment, citizens –
who in the past may have lobbied their local governments for environmental change – may now per-
ceive the consumption of “sustainable” products as a solution to care for the planet (Connolly and
Prothero 2011, 283). In this way, neoliberal consumerism blurs the boundary between people as citi-
zens and people as consumers, creating a “moralized” market (Shamir 2008, 3).
This “moralization of markets,” and by extension the responsibilization of consumers, is a pro-
duct of neoliberal ideology (Shamir 2008, 3). As neoliberalism works to dissolve the distinction
between markets and the state, social issues that were once the responsibility of governments are
increasingly addressed by market actors, including responsible consumers (Shamir 2008, 3). Gies-
ler and Veresiu (2014, 840) have explained that responsible consumers do not just exist, rather
they are actively created and managed through neoliberal markets. Specifically, Giesler and Ver-
esiu (2014) have argued that consumers are responsibilized through a four-step process; first,
through personalization, in which neoliberal discourses of individual agency frame the respon-
sible consumer as the solution to the world’s problems; second, through a process of authoriz-
ation, in which a variety of methods are used to validate and legitimize the consumption
patterns of responsible consumers; third, through capabilization, which entails the creation of
a market in which consumers have the ability to make responsible consumption choices and
last, consumers are made responsible through a process of transformation, whereby a consumer
begins identifying with their new “responsibilized” self.
Giesler and Veresiu (2014) use their responsibilized consumer process in a longitudinal ethno-
graphic analysis at the World Economic Forum to identify the production of four responsible con-
sumer subjects, including: the bottom-of-the-pyramid consumer, the green consumer, the health-
conscious consumer and the financially literate consumer. Throughout this paper, we add to this
typology, the “development consumer” by applying their framework to the case of CRM.3 We
find Giesler and Veresiu’s (2014) framework useful in our analysis because of the way that discursive
aspects of consumption (e.g. advertising messages that highlight the consumer as the actor best
3
We do not engage with the aspect of transformation identified by Giesler and Veresiu (2014) in this paper because we have chosen
not to examine the response of consumers (and how they might adopt ideas of responsibilization). In choosing to focus on the
structures and strategies at play in CRM that lead to responsibilization we emphasize processes of personalization, authorization
and capabilization.
4 A. KIPP AND R. HAWKINS

placed to address global problems) and the more material aspects of consumption (e.g. the structure
of “ethical” consumption practices and the design of CRM models themselves) can be considered
together in the responsibilization of consumer subjects.
We use their framework to trace how the responsible “development consumer” is produced
through the discursive and material practices used in CRM. Our work differs from Giesler and
Veresiu’s, in that our interest lies not only in the production of consumer subjects but also in the
potential implications of responsibilizing consumers in certain ways. We, therefore, draw on our
background in critical development studies to highlight areas of concern around the potential
implications of responsibilizing the “development consumer.” Because of our central focus on devel-
opment-related CRM campaigns, the following section of the paper highlights important insights
from the existing literature on neoliberalism in relation to CRM and international development.

CRM and new development responsibilities

Governments and multilateral institutions have traditionally been responsible for the provision of
international aid; however, the rise in neoliberal policies seen in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as
the economic crisis of the early 2000s has led to the increasing privatization of the aid industry
and the emergence of new actors and alliances within the field (e.g. philanthropists, corporate foun-
dations, celebrities and consumers) (Kamat 2004; Ponte and Richey 2014; Richey and Ponte 2014).
For example, in 2007 private flows of aid (such as remittances, corporate donations and individual
contributions) made up 83% of funds, while official development assistance only accounted for 17%
(Adelman 2009). According to Ponte and Richey (2014, 66), “sources of development financing out-
side traditional official development assistance are growing, and this is shaping the funding agenda
of development.” Although these new actors do not replace the role of the state in international
development, it is important to consider how they are shifting perceptions of who is considered
responsible for addressing development-related issues (Richey and Ponte 2014).
These “new development responsibilities” as we conceptualize them, can be defined as the
perceived diffusion of responsibility from traditional development actors, such as governments, to
new actors and alliances such as corporations and consumers. Drawing on our findings from this
and other research (Hawkins 2011, 2012, 2015) we consider “new development responsibilities”
to be in effect when: (i) responsibility for development outcomes (e.g. lives saved, wells built, medi-
cine delivered) is constituted as the result of individual, everyday actions in the Global North and (ii)
these everyday individual actions are mediated through capitalist market practices (e.g. consuming,
branding, profit-making, commodification, etc.). We understand “new development responsibilities”
as one aspect of current shifts within the international development field that emphasize market-
based social relations (following Shamir [2008]) and individual self-reliance (following Amable
[2011]). Within these shifts, we are focused on the role of consumers.
“Developmental consumption” refers to campaigns addressing development issues (e.g. poverty
relief, clean water, food security, etc.) that are connected to the “processes, materialities and dis-
courses of consumption” (Goodman 2010, 105). This concept encapsulates the idea that consump-
tion has, in a sense, become a “tool” of development, connecting the lifestyle choices of consumers in
the Global North with the wellbeing of individuals in the Global South (Goodman 2010, 105).
Furthermore, Goodman (2010, 105) explains how through “developmental consumption,” inter-
national development is commoditized into something that is “for sale in the marketplace.” He cri-
tiques this trend first, for presenting consumption as the only “alternative” form of development
available to fill the gaps left by the shrinking development budgets of states and second, for excluding
certain beneficiaries of aid (e.g. when communities in the Global South have nothing “marketable” to
sell to the Global North) (Goodman 2010, 114–115).
These critiques follow those made of the neoliberalization of development more broadly by
critical development scholars who assert that reliance on the free-market, increased privatization
of state-led organizations, and the decisions of individuals often lead to growing inequality that is
 CONSUMPTION MARKETS & CULTURE 5

not conducive to long-term sustainable development goals (see Petras and Veltmeyer [2011]). This
reliance further marginalizes certain populations, such as poor women, often the same populations
that these practices aim to help (Hickel 2014). An ongoing point of analysis in this area of research
involves considering whose voices are included (or not) in decision-making under neoliberal devel-
opment policies (Kothari 2005; Marchand and Parpart 2003). Critical development scholars are
particularly cognizant of the importance of discourse about development and as a result there is a
substantial literature looking at the representations of “development” to the public and the potential
effects of these representations (for just some examples see: Baillie Smith [2013]; Cameron and
Haanstra [2008]; Dogra [2007]; Kennedy [2009]; Wilson [2011]).
Drawing on this literature, analyses of CRM campaign discourses have found that it is common to
use negative images of poverty and starvation to appeal to the sympathy of consumers (e.g. Hawkins
2011; Richey 2012). However, this is not the case for all CRM campaigns as many use “feel-good”
messaging that emphasizes the consumer’s ability to make a difference (e.g. Hawkins and Emel
[2014]; Ponte and Richey [2014]). Short slogans or sound bites are often used to communicate
the premise of the campaign (e.g. the “One-for-one” slogan of TOMS®). These sound bites, as
well as the use of both positive and negative imagery, have been critiqued as simplifying development
“problems” and over-emphasizing the role of the Global North (and the consumer) as the “saviour”
or “hero” of those in the Global South (Hawkins 2011, 2012; Ponte and Richey 2014). We will return
to these critiques in our analysis below.
While the discourses of CRM campaigns have been analyzed in terms of how beneficiaries or
consumers are framed within them (e.g. victim/saviour), there is very little research on the way
these discourses influence consumer culture by working to produce the consumer as responsible.
Throughout the next sections of the paper, we begin to address this gap, by examining the ways
that CRM discourse as well as CRM campaign design and structure work to responsibilize the
“development consumer.” We then discuss the implications of this responsibilization in terms of
how the production of the “development consumer” through CRM reinforces development practices
that as critical development scholars we deem problematic, due to their lack of participation with
local communities and long-term, sustainable solutions.

Research design
In order to explore the responsibilization of the “development” consumer through the CRM model,
we conducted several phases of data collection and analysis (outlined in Table 1). The first and
second phases of our data collection involved conducting two systematic Internet-based searches
(2009/2010 and 2012) to create a database of CRM initiatives. To be included in the database a
campaign was required to be transaction-based,4 support an international development cause, and
be targeting consumers in North America. We located these campaigns through searching: emails
from a CRM mailing list, press releases and websites of development NGOs and corporations
using CRM, blogs of self-identified “ethical consumers,” and online forums discussing ethical
products.
Once the database was assembled, in the third phase of data collection a comparison between the
two timeframes revealed some significant changes in the use of CRM over this short duration,
including an increase in the use of CRM by social enterprises compared to traditional for-profit com-
panies.5 In the 2009/2010 database, only 5% of corporations engaged in CRM could be described as
4
Transaction-based refers to a model of CRM in which a consumer purchase is necessary to trigger the donation (e.g. a
portion of the proceeds, a certain dollar amount or a specific item) to a predetermined social-cause (Berglind and Nakata
2005).
5
Our quantitative comparison of the 2009/2010 to the 2012 database is limited in that the information is based on Internet searches
and it is therefore possible that CRM-as-development did not grow absolutely (from 60 to 80 campaigns per year) over this time
period but rather the Internet presence of CRM may have grown, making the campaigns easier to access. Regardless we include
several quantitative comparisons in our findings because of what they suggest about the rapid pace with which the CRM model is
6 A. KIPP AND R. HAWKINS

Table 1. Data collection and analysis chart.

Phase – data collection
and analysis methods Data collected/analyzed Purpose Time frame
1. Systematic-Internet Database created of CRM campaigns To survey the CRM field July 2009–
search for (n = 60) noting information on the June 2010
development-focused cause, donation amount and type,
CRM campaigns actors involved, and region where
donation was sent
2. Systematic-Internet Second database created of CRM To survey the CRM field January–
search for campaigns (n = 80) including the December
development-focused same information as the original 2012
CRM campaigns database
3. Initial analysis of Examined CRM campaign structure To identify similarities and differences December
campaigns and discourses for all campaigns between data collected in phase 1 2012–June
(n = 140) and 2 2013
4. In-depth qualitative Qualitative discourse analysis focused To reveal the processes of June 2013–
discourse analysis of on textual elements of social responsibilization at work through December
social enterprise CRM enterprise campaign (n = 60) campaign discourse and practice/ 2013
campaigns websites. Open-coding used to structure
identify common words, phrases,
themes and narratives on webpages
of the social enterprises. Special
focus on donation structure and
founders’ stories
5. Key informant Conducted eight one-hour semi- To understand the way specific CRM January–
interviews structured interviews with NGO (n = strategies were used in practice to September
2) and social enterprise (n = 6) responsibilize consumers and the 2013
representatives. Interviews focused reasons behind their use
on the design/structure of CRM
campaigns. Interview transcripts
coded following analysis methods in
Phase 4.

social enterprises, whereas in 2012 the prevalence reached 71%. We found that the trend toward
social enterprises was accompanied by transformations in the way CRM was practiced and commu-
nicated to consumers. For example, we noted that in the 2012 data personal stories of the social
enterprise founders (founding stories) were commonly used to explain the CRM campaign, its pur-
pose and goals to consumers (also noted by Potter [2011]). In 49% of the 80 CRM initiatives
researched in 2012, stories about the organizations’ founders were posted on the campaign websites.
For the fourth phase of our research we narrowed down the sample to include only CRM cam-
paigns by social enterprises and conducted an in-depth analysis of their campaign structure and dis-
course through a process of open-coding. We looked closely at founding stories and examined the
words, narratives and story-arcs used by the founders to describe their personal experiences and
motivations behind starting their social enterprises. According to Yngfalk (2016, 7), qualitative dis-
course analysis is extremely useful in studying consumption issues, “particularly when commercial
and consumption phenomena are scrutinized in relation to the development of wider socio-econ-
omic structures.” In our discourse analysis, we focused on the textual elements of the websites of
CRM campaigns in order to explore the way development issues are represented in relation to the
consumer (see Zeddies and Millei [2015, 102]). Throughout our discourse analysis we paid specific
attention to the various ways knowledge about international development issues is produced and,
following Zeddies and Millei (2015, 102), we focused on the “power relations embedded in these dis-
cursive constructions and positionings.”

changing. Recognizing these limitations, we contextualize the quantitative trends with more nuanced and detailed qualitative
data. Although it is impossible to be certain that the database we compiled was an exhaustive list of CRM campaigns, there exists
precedence for such research that has contributed greatly to the body of literature surrounding CRM (see Ponte and Richey [2014,
72]).
 CONSUMPTION MARKETS & CULTURE 7

Finally, in order to flesh out some of the findings from Phase 4, in the fifth phase we conducted
eight, one-hour semi-structured interviews with NGO (n = 2) and social enterprise (n = 6) represen-
tatives. Interviews focused on the design of CRM campaigns and the reasons behind using certain
donation structures or narrative practices. We then analyzed these interview transcripts, again
through a process of open-coding, in which we looked for new themes, as well as themes that had
been identified in the discourse analysis of campaign materials. This allowed us to better understand
the way specific CRM strategies were used in practice to responsibilize consumers. Although only a
small sample, the key informants provided significant insights into the intricacies of CRM campaigns
as well as into the individual practices used to implement CRM within their respective organizations.
Throughout the findings section of this paper, we use representative quotations from the websites
of social enterprises using CRM, the founding stories located on these websites, and semi-structured
interviews. In interpreting our data, we maintained a critical perspective, keeping in mind that the
narratives analyzed were integral to the marketing techniques and the public face of the social enter-
prises (Smith and Yanacopulos 2004). That said, examining how social enterprises are understood by
their founders and represented to potential consumers provides interesting insights into how exactly
the “development consumer” is produced.

Findings: strategies used in CRM to responsibilize the “development consumer”

Below we illustrate how the marketing strategies of social enterprises and the design of CRM cam-
paigns produce individuals as responsible “development consumers.”

Personalizing the cause for the consumer

To encourage consumers to embrace responsibility for broader social issues, these issues must first be
framed as something that consumers are personally connected to and have the ability to solve (Gies-
ler and Veresiu 2014, 845). According to Bajde (2012, 359), an important component of peoples’
charitable giving is their ability to imagine their giving, including imagining the “distant other”
their gift is directed towards. The CRM model as a whole is a clear example of personalization in
that its premise is that individual consumer decisions are needed to trigger donations towards sol-
ving global problems and that these global problems are best addressed through consumer actions
(see Hawkins [2011]; Ponte and Richey [2014]; and Richey and Ponte [2011]).
In the CRM campaigns we studied, it was evident that this process of personalization was often
emphasized through the design of the CRM campaign structure in the use of a one-for-one funding
model. The shift from for-profit corporations to not-just-for-profit social enterprises within the
CRM field was accompanied in our analysis by a change in funding model that encouraged consumers
to connect more personally with development issues. In the 2009/2010 database, most CRM campaigns
committed a donation towards a cause that was listed as a dollar amount (e.g. three cents per product)
or as a percentage of the purchase price (e.g. 5%) (Hawkins 2012). In 2012, many more campaigns
employed a one-for-one funding model, in which one product was donated for every product pur-
chased. The use of the one-for-one funding structure rose from 3% to 22.5% from 2009/2010 to 2012.
There are many potential explanations for the increased use of this model. For example, the suc-
cess and popularity of the social enterprise TOMS® in the footwear industry may have accounted for
the rise in popularity of the one-for-one funding model. In Hulsether’s (2013) examination of
TOMS® shoes, she sees a desire to belong to a community or the “Global TOMS® family,” as the
reason for the success of the one-for-one model. Another reason for this shift may have been to pro-
vide more transparent information to consumers in an attempt to correct the common criticism that
donation amounts are often presented opaquely within CRM campaigns (Cone 2013). For example,
it is much easier for consumers to understand the impact of their purchase when they know that the
same specific object (e.g. shoes, glasses, toothbrush, etc.) is being donated, rather than having to cal-
culate what 5% of the purchase price might yield in terms of funds and then ultimately, in terms of
8 A. KIPP AND R. HAWKINS

development contributions/outcomes. One founder, whose company provided a bicycle to a person

in a “developing country” for every bicycle that was purchased by a consumer in the Global North,
spoke in an interview to the attractiveness of the simplicity of one-for-one, he stated:
I think you really need to have a strong and impactful communication to build your promise on. I mean I could
have said that for every tenth bicycle sold we will donate [one]. That would have been much better for the bot-
tom line … Of course, I want to have a good business with this company but I also want to have a clear and
transparent communication around my promise. So [we chose] the one-for-one promise. The best thing with
that I think is that it’s simple. It’s actually so clear what you support.

This simplicity has the potential to allow individuals to feel more connected to the development issue
they are supporting, for example by imagining that they and an intended beneficiary are riding the
same bicycle. The desire to help consumers make these personalized connections was especially evi-
dent in the practices of one social enterprise in our study that aimed to literally make these links
visible to the consumer by making all of their donated products, in this case baby slings, the same
color. Their website stated:
Each sling donated to Haiti is orange with a red hoop. It is branded this way so that when customers see Haiti
on the news they can identify that their purchase is making a difference.

Ultimately, the one-for-one model, and the inherent linking of the individual consumer with the
individual intended beneficiary through the consumption and donation process, is a way of perso-
nalizing international development issues for consumers. This reflects neoliberal consumerism as
well as the argument made by Giesler and Veresiu (2014, 843) that the process of responsibilization
of the consumer, involves framing consumers as the prime problem solver of a social problem effec-
tively removing the onus of states and institutions to address the underlying development issue (e.g.
poverty in the Global South). In order to do this, the problem must be identified simply (e.g. lack of
bicycle or baby sling) and a clear solution provided (e.g. buying a bicycle or baby sling to trigger the
donation of the same product to someone “in need”).

Using founders’ stories to authorize consumer action

According to Giesler and Veresiu (2014) in order to make the consumer feel as though they are
responsible for broader social issues, actors other than the consumer authorize or legitimize consump-
tion as the solution to these problems. This authorization process can be seen in the discourse used by
CRM campaigns to represent development issues to consumers. Specifically, through our research, we
identified and explored the use of founding stories by social entrepreneurs as an increasingly common
discursive tactic used in CRM to engage consumers with both products and development issues. Often
the stories employed for this task were about the personal journey of the social enterprise founder that
motivated his/her engagement with CRM and an international development issue.
Our analysis of the 39 founding stories collected for our 2012 database indicated that they were
generally a firsthand account of the entrepreneur’s experience with international development issues
(seen in 54% of founding stories) and their belief that business/the market could solve development-
related problems (seen in 77% of founding stories). We found that founding stories often revolved
around personal, first-hand experiences of travel and inspiration found in developing countries. For
example, the founding story of a social enterprise that donates a portion of money from the sale of a
backpack to a scholarship fund for students in Tanzania stated:
The sun was rising over Tanzania, as I accomplished my goal of reaching the highest peak in Africa. A porter,
named Benson, spent the week helping me get there. Showing me the way, he carried my heavy rucksack to
enable my success. As we descended from the summit, I learned he earns around a dollar a day – not enough
to put a child through school. Arriving home, I was eager to add as much value to his life as he did to mine, so
I bought a sewing machine and got to work creating our first product, a backpack named “The Benson.”
Now considered our flagship piece, The Benson backpack represents the rucksack he carried for me, which
allowed me to reach the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro.
 CONSUMPTION MARKETS & CULTURE 9

Through these stories founders often identified a development problem and then the resulting
solution as part of their personal narrative. In this example, the problem identified is the lack of
money for children’s schooling and the solution is a scholarship. In other examples, the solutions
were more tangible in nature. The founding story below is from the website of a social enterprise
that donated a “new pair of corrective glasses to a person in need” for every pair of sunglasses sold.
Last summer I traveled in South America and East Africa, and as I went from place to place I realized something
was missing. No one was wearing glasses. As I learned about eye care I felt moved to help, and I figured other
people would too.

By sharing these firsthand experiences, founders constructed themselves as experts in the field of
international development, and legitimized consumers’ involvement with development issues
through consumption.
When asked about their use of founding stories in interviews, several social entrepreneurs empha-
sized their belief that their stories were powerful tools for helping consumers relate to the cause and
for inspiring action/consumption. For example, a founder, whose company donated five dollars from
the sale of any of their products to a charity supporting education in Latin America, explained the use
of his story, stating:
This is my story. This is, before it’s a marketing tool, it is my story. So, if you like my story you may like what we
do and if you want to know what’s behind our product you may want to know my story … It’s not about buying
my product; it’s about sharing my story so it relates to people to feel inspired and willing to do the same. The
story is so people can understand how everything started and to relate to it and hopefully they believe the pur-
pose of what we do is really about helping someone.

It is important to consider the potential impact that founders’ stories may have on legitimizing the
need for consumer participation, which initiates a process of authorization needed to produce a
responsible consumer and enroll them in CRM consumption (Giesler and Veresiu 2014). Stories,
more specifically, strategic narratives by corporations, can be used to “mobilize consumer conduct”
and produce consumer subjectivities in specific ways (Moisander and Eriksson 2006, 259). The use of
first-person narratives in CRM campaigns, in which founders identify a development problem and
suggest a solution to said problem, allows them to be produced as development “experts” and in turn
legitimizes individuals’ role in international development through their consumption. Additionally,
these stories reinforce the neoliberal notion that it is through individual gumption and passion, com-
bined with the market, that social issues (such as development) will best be addressed. Once the
social entrepreneurs are framed as passionate experts, the result is an authorization of consumer
engagement in development through CRM campaigns.

Producing a market capable of supporting a responsible “development consumer”

In order for the responsibilization of consumers to occur, a market must exist that provides them
with the capability to make ethical consumption choices (Giesler and Veresiu 2014). In the use of
CRM by social entrepreneurs, there is an enormous emphasis on consumer choice and a common
refrain that consumers can act responsibly by making the correct (moral) purchases within a
crowded marketplace. Many of the CRM campaigns studied framed positive development outcomes
as a straightforward process of consumer decision-making, in the sense that consumers must choose
to buy a CRM product over a non-CRM product in order to support a development cause. The
following quotations from campaign discourses cataloged in our 2012 database framed these consu-
mer choices as a means of “saving” or “changing” lives: “The goal was to come up with a household
product people use every day that had the power to save lives”; or “We can’t change the whole world
overnight. But you can change it for one person right now”; or “The people in the Horn of Africa
need you now. One small act can make you a hero. Give now.”
Beyond simply buying one (CRM) product over another (non-CRM) product, consumers were
also encouraged to make other choices within CRM campaigns that allowed them to enact their
10 A. KIPP AND R. HAWKINS

moral ideals and desires. For example, consumers were often asked to choose which cause (e.g.
women’s rights, health care, etc.) they wanted their purchase to support or which specific region
they wanted their donation to go to. In other cases, a purchase allowed the consumer to choose
from a list of charities on the company’s website. For example, a chocolate company that donated
1% of proceeds from each bar sold explained the “customizability” of a consumer’s donation, stating:
Just as the consumers can choose the ingredients they want in their personalized chocolate bar, they can also
choose the charity to which the company donates the portion of the proceeds from their chocolate bars.

In other campaigns, these engagements went beyond simply choosing which cause to support. For
example, one company allowed consumers to select not only where the child receiving the product
lived, and the colour of the product, but also allowed the consumer to include a personalized note
to the intended beneficiary. The founders of several social enterprises expressed their desire to empha-
size consumer decision-making as a way of making the consumer feel more empowered when it comes
to development issues, and therefore more capable of making an impact through their consumption.
One of the most extreme forms of consumer engagement identified in our research was the
opportunity provided for some individual consumers to participate directly in the donation distri-
bution process. In some cases, consumers could choose to travel with social enterprise companies
and take part in what were often referred to as donation “drops,” following the popular shoe
“drop” model of TOMS® that enabled consumers to distribute shoes to children in the Global
South (see Ponte and Richey [2014]). The donation “drop” was praised for its supposed ability to
connect consumers to a cause (e.g. through direct participation or blog posts and videos reporting
the details of the “drop”); however, as we will discuss below, this type of engagement also poses a
potential problem by neglecting to fully consider the needs of the intended beneficiaries and com-
munities in the Global South.
Through consumer engagement, CRM is creating a moralized market to provide individuals with
the needed infrastructure to make “responsible” choices about development issues through their
consumption. This highlights the process of capabilization that Giesler and Veresiu (2014, 843)
assert as being one of the core processes of responsibilization. Our research shows that CRM cam-
paigns are designed and marketed with consumer choice at the fore in order to produce an ethical
consumption model through which consumers are capable of influencing global change by their
responsible consumption.

Summary of research findings

Overall, our research findings reveal how the various strategies of development-focused social enter-
prises using CRM work to responsibilize consumers. We build on Giesler and Veresiu’s (2014)
work by detailing exactly how the “development consumer” is responsibilized through the structural
design and discourse of CRM campaigns. Specifically, we illustrated how personalization occurs
through the one-for-one giving model that links individual “development consumers” with individual
beneficiaries in developing countries. We highlighted how founders’ stories authorize consumers to act
in responsible ways by legitimizing the change that one caring consumer can make once inspired to act.
We then discussed how the focus on consumer choice and donation “drops” works to produce a CRM
model in which the capacity of consumers to influence global change through everyday consumption
decisions is emphasized. In the next section, we extend our analysis beyond Giesler and Veresiu’s
(2014) framework to critically examine the potential implications the responsibilization of the “devel-
opment consumer” may have for international development and consumer culture.

Discussion: neoliberal consumerism and new development responsibilities

Neoliberal consumerism, as manifested in CRM campaigns, works to move solutions to international
development issues from a grandiose task undertaken by governments and official institutions to a
 CONSUMPTION MARKETS & CULTURE 11

simple, everyday act that individuals in the Global North can engage with through consumption.
Through the processes outlined above, and consumers’ engagement with them, the consumer sub-
jectivity of the “development consumer” is produced. We argue that the responsibilization of indi-
viduals into “development consumers” is inherently problematic because of how these processes
simplify development issues, frame consumers as the solution to development, and maintain markets
that reinforce the unequal power dynamic between “development consumers” and the intended ben-
eficiaries in the Global South.

Shifting responsibilities
Through neoliberal consumerism many state responsibilities, such as initiatives addressing inter-
national development issues, are shifted to private individuals and corporations. Moisander and
Eriksson (2006, 272) warn that although such a shift may be beneficial in some cases, “policy-makers
and consumer organizations need to understand and develop strategies that are sensitive to the insi-
dious, complex relations of power in which the subjectivity and freedom of the consumer-citizen is
produced and shaped in the market.” Similarly, we assert that in the case of CRM, neoliberal con-
sumerism has led to a shift in who is positioned as responsible for addressing international develop-
ment issues, shifting some responsibility away from state institutions and towards everyday
individual actions that are mediated through capitalist markets.
Through these “new development responsibilities,” the role of new actors (“development consu-
mers” and social entrepreneurs) is legitimized, despite their potential lack of expertize or long-term
commitment to the people, places and issues their consumption/donation is said to support. For
example, as seen in the founders’ stories, social entrepreneurs often decide which development issues
to address through their personal experiences (e.g. international travel). They then identify potential
development problems (e.g. a lack of eye glasses) and solutions (e.g. eyeglasses “drops”) and commu-
nicate these solutions to “development consumers.” In this way, fundamental social issues are reduced
to objectified, and hence marketized, commodities. Furthermore, decisions regarding where donations
should be directed are often left to the choices of “development consumers” or decisions by the social
entrepreneurs themselves. These decisions rely heavily on personal connections and experiences, rather
than community consultation or need. Such an approach to distribution works to anchor responsibility
firmly in the choices of individual entrepreneurs and “development consumers” in the Global North,
effectively ignoring the knowledge or needs of individuals in the Global South.
The individualized aspect of “new development responsibilities” is emphasized in some of the
founding stories we analyzed. The focus on an individual story or an individual in need, which is
seen in CRM campaigns, parallels Bajde’s (2012, 363) assertion that charitable giving (or in this
case charitable consuming) emphasizes the direct relationship between donors and the end recipient.
In CRM campaigns, the focus is often on specific people that consumers can “get to know” through
these narratives. The founding story described above about Benson, the porter on Mount Kiliman-
jaro who inspired the creation of a backpack with his same name, is a clear example of this phenom-
enon. Van Eekelen (2013, 471) calls this linking between individuals an “empathic telescope effect,”
whereby people are most easily persuaded to help others when they are made to feel responsible by a
cry for help from a single individual.
Benson is first described as an inspirational hiking guide by a social entrepreneur and then later
reduced to a “commodity” as the flagship product of the company, The Benson Backpack®. The back-
pack shares his name and his story of hardship and is used to encourage consumers to make respon-
sible consumption decisions. The lack of Benson’s own voice in the narrative is the kind of practice
that critical development scholars take issue with as they dissect the power dynamics inherent in
Global North–South relations. Looking at the process of consumer responsibilization through devel-
opment-focused CRM campaigns allows us to pay special attention to whose stories are made per-
sonal and by whom. In this case, the social entrepreneur is able to transform Benson from person to
character to commodity through one story.
12 A. KIPP AND R. HAWKINS

We must also examine who is given the authority to act on behalf of whom through CRM
discourses and who is made capable (and conversely who is not) within the CRM model. The voices
and knowledge of the very people who CRM campaigns are designed to help are missing from this
responsibilization process, yet another downside to this focus on the power of the neoliberal
“development consumer” to enact change. Additionally, the expertise and ability of social entrepre-
neurs to make change is magnified through these stories, reinforcing the individualized and market-
ized aspects of “new development responsibilities.” Together this foregrounds consumption as a
legitimate way to engage in “solving” international development issues, which may simplify
“development consumers”’ understandings of issues of global inequality while simultaneously
prioritizing top-down, market-based approaches to development issues over community-generated
or participatory ones.

Unsustainable solutions and depolitizing development

The production of individuals in the Global North as “development consumers” through the processes
of responsibilization, and by extension neoliberal consumerism, is also problematic as it frames inter-
national development issues as simple problems that can (easily) be solved by consumers. This sim-
plification of development “problems” also results in narrowly defined development “solutions” (see
Hawkins and Emel [2014]). For example, founders’ stories often describe an individual from the Glo-
bal North witnessing, then naming a problem (e.g. lack of glasses) and then publicizing this problem to
generate donations (e.g. glasses) through entrepreneurial ingenuity and consumer purchases. Con-
structing the problem as a lack of glasses rather than a resource-poor health system allows consumers
to more easily see how they can engage with the problem (e.g. by buying and therefore supplying
glasses). For Dogra (2011), it is the use of personal stories about individuals (in this case the social
enterprise founder) that moves development causes from the sphere of the political to the personal,
essentially removing development issues from the complex contexts in which they are based.
We argue that the process of responsibilizing the “development consumer” – through CRM cam-
paign design and discourse – is also a process of depoliticizing development; moving it from the pol-
itical to the personal (or from the structural to the individual). Rather than promoting substantial
routes to change, such as capacity development, sustainable livelihoods or empowerment programs,
the responsibilization of “development consumers” paints a picture of an ever-dependent Global
South. For example, in the one-for-one model, the intended beneficiaries are seen as dependent
on donors from the Global North and the products that are simply “dropped” into communities.
This model of CRM operates on an understanding of charity and aid in which handouts of specific
things (e.g. glasses, shoes, bicycles, etc.) are distributed in a top-down approach, without adequate
consultation with the communities in which they work. In fact, TOMS® has been critiqued for the
harm that shoe “drops” can have on local shoe economies when local shoemakers are not consulted
before TOMS® floods the market with imported shoes (Wydick, Katz, and Janet 2014). As CRM
becomes more ubiquitous and more development monies move through it, the material implications
of this one-for-one funding model in the Global South require further interrogation.
Another concern around the focus on neoliberal consumerism that plays out through CRM is the
question of accountability and the lack of project vetting and evaluation that CRM provides. In other
words, the impacts of this “responsible” development consumption are largely unknown. While
companies generally report publicly on the donation amount they have committed and distributed
each year (e.g. x number of textbooks), the implications of these donations are less well accounted for
(Hawkins 2012). CRM projects seem to rarely evaluate the effects of the CRM donation in terms of
meeting the needs of intended beneficiary communities and the impact of the projects on their well-
being. As a result, development outcomes go unreported and unmeasured (Ponte and Richey 2014).
As more diverse actors (such as social entrepreneurs) engage with development issues, figuring out
ways to evaluate their impacts and to integrate these projects with national or community-based
development plans will be necessary.
 CONSUMPTION MARKETS & CULTURE 13

CRM and consumer culture

Although producing “development consumers” who feel responsible for development issues and act
on this responsibility through their consumption may seem beneficial, the potential negative conse-
quences of this on consumer culture are important to highlight. First, according to Roff (2007, 515)
in her analysis on neoliberalizing activism through consumption, the responsibilization of consu-
mers is problematic as it places the burden of responsibility on the consumer and constructs con-
sumption as the “new arena of citizenship.” Roff states:
Rather than seeing society as a collective project governed by a body of individuals for the benefit of all, neo-
liberal consumerism devolves community sensibilities and frames society as the emergent property of a com-
plex interaction of millions of individual decisions. Therefore, any problems that arise are our faults – that is we,
as consumers, have not put our money in the right places (2007, 516).

We extend Roff’s (2007) analysis to the case of CRM by arguing that the so-called “development con-
sumer” that this practice produces is being unfairly expected to take on these “new development
responsibilities.” Consumers may have a responsibility to themselves and to the global community
to make more ethical choices, but we argue that it is too much to expect that individual consumption
decisions can solve the world’s development problems, particularly when these problems are com-
plex and in need of multi-faceted and multi-actor engagement. The emphasis through CRM on mak-
ing issues personal, authorizing the consumer to act, and creating a structure through which they are
capable of acting, is far too narrow of an approach to address major global problems of inequality.
Additionally, as outlined by Roff (2007, 516), connecting social responsibility to the consumption of
niche products (such as TOMS® shoes) excludes not only the voices and desires of those in the Global
South but also consumers in the Global North who cannot afford these products. This re-imagin-
ation of consumption as activism in CRM, through the emphasis on consumers changing the
world and making a difference, means that only some people are able to enact responsible “develop-
ment consumer” subjectivities in the first place and therefore “become” moral beings.
Finally, although consumer choice is used as part of the capabilization process within CRM, it is lar-
gely an imagined choice since enterprises regulate the options from which consumers can choose (e.g.
donation amount, type of donation, donation location, causes supported, place that product is manu-
factured, etc.). This argument echoes Beckett’s (2012) assertion that corporations are using new
methods to indirectly govern their consumers, leading to a false sense of consumer sovereignty. We
argue that this imagined sense of choice results in “development consumers” engaging with inter-
national development issues in a way that is dangerously simplistic and superficial. Following Yngfalk’s
(2016) argument, we see neoliberal consumerism, and by extension CRM, as being both individualizing
and totalizing as it simultaneously promotes the responsibility of the individual consumer as well as
predetermines ways of engaging in international development. As outlined above, our concern from
this analysis is that the strategies used to responsibilize the “development consumer” are not just affect-
ing the consumption side of CRM but also have serious implications for the development/donation side
of the model as well (e.g. increased dependency of the Global South on the Global North, lack of
accountability for social enterprise development “interventions,” simplification of development pro-
blems and solutions, ignoring the knowledge and needs of people in the Global South, etc.).

Conclusion: new development responsibilities and the “development consumer”

This article has highlighted that social entrepreneurs using the CRM model have recently positioned
themselves as new actors in the field of international development. In examining the use of CRM by
social enterprises, we have illustrated how the “development consumer” is responsibilized in CRM
through three specific processes: (a) personalization; (b) authorization and (c) capabilization. We
have argued that these processes play out through the design and discursive strategies of CRM cam-
paigns and that they function not only to engage consumers in the social enterprises themselves, but
also to encourage individuals to engage in consumption in order to address global issues. While
14 A. KIPP AND R. HAWKINS

bringing development issues into the “everyday” lives of people in the Global North may be a useful
goal, we have questioned the implications of this responsibilization through the CRM model. We
have shown how the processes that responsibilize “development consumers” (i.e. personalization,
authorization, and capabilization) rely on practices that impede long-term, sustainable development
(such as: the one-for-one giving model, focusing on the stories of one “inspired” founder, donation
“drops,” etc.). Ultimately, we have illustrated that the neoliberalization of consumers and of inter-
national development are tightly intertwined and that a detailed examination of the responsibiliza-
tion of “development consumers” offers one window through which we can illuminate how this
intertwining takes place and is reinforced.
Moving forward, we propose that in an age of “new development responsibilities,” individuals in
the Global North are increasingly likely to be positioned as responsible for “solving” development
issues through their everyday practices of consumption. As a result, it is imperative that more critical
questions are asked about the CRM model, the intentions and expertise of social entrepreneurs and
the impact that this has on both the outcomes of international development-focused projects and on
the ways that the responsibilities of consumers in the Global North are framed. We are concerned
that through CRM campaigns and consumers’ engagement with these campaigns, consumers are
increasingly produced as responsible for international development issues through simple processes
that reinforce market-based engagements and unsustainable forms of aid provision. Overall, we
encourage more theoretical and empirical studies into the trend of “new development responsibil-
ities,” particularly as it relates to neoliberal consumerism.

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the editors and reviewers for their support and constructive insights throughout the review
process.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding
This work was supported by a Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insight Develop-
ment Grant.

Notes on contributors
Amy Kipp is a research associate at the University of Guelph. Her past research focused on representations of inter-
national development issues in the Global North as well as the gendered dimensions of fear and care in the volunteer
tourism sector. Her current research explores Indigenous health adaptations to environmental and socioeconomic
change in Northern Canada.
Roberta Hawkins is an assistant professor at the University of Guelph. Her research examines the ways in which
people, places, and natures in the global North and the South are connected (or not) through understandings and prac-
tices of development. She pays particular attention to ethical consumption campaigns and their discursive and material
connections to the environment and international development.

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