Evaluating the Facebook Meeting: Silver Springs' Retention Numbers Down

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Ethics Case Study:
Silver Springs’ Facebook Strategy
This is a fictitious company, created for the purposes of this case study. To the best
knowledge of the author at the time the case was written, the company and its products
do not exist. Facebook, Inc. is a real company but the specific strategy described in the case
study is fictional. Cite as: O’Callaghan, P.C. (2016). Ethics case study: Silver Springs’
Facebook Strategy. Unpublished case study, Business and Management Department,
University of Maryland University College.
You are the new marketing director for the Silver Springs Life Insurance
Company based in Silver Springs, Maryland. Silver Springs, a name trusted
by many older Americans, is a successful life insurance company with a 94-
year history. It is a public company listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
Silver Springs’ internal company
data indicates that annually 100,000 term life policyholders allow their
policies to lapse and lose life insurance coverage. Through customer
research and modeling Silver Springs has learned that 60%
of those policyholders who lapseeach year are between ages 60-70 and have
one or more financially dependent children or grandchildren living under
their roof. Sensing an opportunity to win back these policyholders and attract
others like them, Silver Springs has created a more competitively
priced insurance policy it would like to pilot with this target group. The
product, called the Good Provider Policy, was named after thetarget group,
which Silver Springs calls “Good Providers.” A cross-functional product team
has been assembled with the ambitiousinitial goal of winning back 50%
of policyholders in the target group. You are the marketing representative to
that team; you have been tasked with producing and placing ads to
promote the Good Provider Policy to the target group
of former policyholders.
Good Providers are known to be highly active on Facebook, so as your
first major task Silver Springs has arranged for you and your teamto have
a meeting called a publishing garage with ad strategists from Facebook to
develop a digital ad strategy for the target market.You are now in New York,
meeting with the Facebook people. When you arrive Facebook mentions they
will be asking Silver Springs toprovide specific customer data for the
target group to Facebook; this allows Facebook to match-up with known
Facebook users anddevelop ads specifically to appear in
the newsfeeds only of those targets. The data points suggested for good
matching are: email, phone number, first name, last name, ZIP or postal
code, city, state, country, date of birth, year of birth, age, and gender.
The room is full of advertising strategists and market research
analysts. The meeting is off to a slow start until…a Facebook analystlooks up
from her computer and suggests, why not use what we learned from
the emotions study to motivate the targets? Emotions study? You look up
with confusion, but everyone else nods.

The analyst reminds everyone that Facebook already knows from a
prior research study that certain newsfeed posts were found to be effective
in influencing users’ emotions. She suggests, why not seed
the targets’ newsfeeds with a stream of posts throughout the daydesigned to
invoke a mood of insecurity. Examples might include seemingly unrelated
stories about famous celebrities who died between ages 60-
70, statistics about life-threatening illness and accidents among older
people, and stories about adult children having trouble coping on their own.
Facebook would then mix in reassuring ads for the Good Provider Policy.
This is your first publishing garage so you are not quite sure how to react.
The Facebook strategists and your team are all looking at you for your
approval. Meanwhile, your phone buzzes and you excuse yourself; you
see your boss has texted you, “How’s the Facebook meeting going? This
quarter retention numbers down. We need a big win.”
Case Study Questions
What are the marketing objectives of Silver Springs for this advertising
campaign? Who is the target market? [1 paragraph]
Describe all known elements of the marketing strategy proposed by
Facebook for the Silver Springs campaign. [2 paragraphs]
What are the ethical responsibilities of Silver Springs and Facebook?
[3 paragraphs]
Evaluate the ethics of the proposed marketing strategy using HYPERLINK
"http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/the-legal-environment-and-
government-regulation-of-business/s05-03-an-ethical-decision-model.html" Jo
sephson’s Core Values model,including all five steps. [3-5 pages]
Make recommendations for Silver Springs about the proposed marketing
strategy, based on the ethical analysis. Remember, you are not a
disinterested observer; you are the marketing director for Silver Springs!
How should these recommendations be communicated to your boss? How
will you respond to your boss’s text? [2-3 paragraphs]
Resources
W2 Readings
HYPERLINK "https://www.facebook.com/facebook" Facebook
Goel, V. (2014). How Facebook sold you krill oil. New York Times Retrieved
from HYPERLINK
"http://ezproxy.umuc.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.umu
c.edu/docview/1550635045?accountid=14580" http://ezproxy.umuc.edu/
login?url=http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.umuc.edu/docview/
1550635045?accountid=14580
Hill, K. (2014). Facebook manipulated 689,003 users’ emotions for science.
Forbes.com Retrieved from HYPERLINK "http://ezproxy.umuc.edu/login?
url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=bth&AN=96888475&site=eds-live&scope=site" http://
ezproxy.umuc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=bth&AN=96888475&site=eds-live&scope=site

O’Brien, B. (2016). 9 new and semi-secret Facebook targeting options.
Retrieved from HYPERLINK "http://marketingland.com/9-new-semi-secret-
facebook-targeting-options-184810" http://marketingland.com/9-new-semi-
secret-facebook-targeting-options-184810
Business Case Studies, Part I (2012). Marketing Prozac [video beginning at
29: 15], Retrieved from HYPERLINK "https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=PFYRbPVrQrw" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFYRbPVrQrw
Assignment
This is an individual assignment worth 30% of the final grade for this course.
Analyze this case study by responding to the case study questions and
present your analysis and recommendations in a case study
analysis paper. The factual information needed will be found within the case
and the resources. No additional research, outside the resources, is expected
for this assignment. Information on writing a case analysis paper can be
found HYPERLINK
"http://www.umb.edu/editor_uploads/images/college_management/Framewor
k%20for%20Case%20Analysis.pdf" here.
The suggested lengths for each section appear in the case study questions
above.
Suggested fonts are:
Arial
Cambria
Calibri
Times New Roman
The font size is 11-12.
All factual material must be properly source cited in APA format. A reference
list in APA format is required. This is an individual assignment; no
collaboration with other students is permitted. Please be aware that the case
study paper will be submitted to Turnitin and issues with originality will be
forwarded to the Dean’s Office under the Academic Integrity process.
Follow this format:
Introduction
Case Analysis
Marketing Objectives
Marketing Strategy
Ethical Responsibilities
Ethical Evaluation
Recommendation
Conclusion