Marketing to specific groups of consumers, or target merchandising, is one of the most important concepts in merchandising.
Marketers, through the ages, have proverbial who their customers are, and directed their efforts at influencing their buying decisions. That is their job.
In the last 30 years though, venders have begun to identify potential buyers supported a number of factors, that make many people uncomfortable. Marketers now direct promotions at those of certain age groups, gender, race, married status status, gender preferences, and just about any other category you can place people in.
Cost Per Acquisition
This makes many consumers and consumer advocates question the ethicality of these promotions:
Is it fair to direct ads at children when they do not have the understanding and/or cappower to judge what is being given to them?
Is it fair to target ads at elderly, living on fixed incomes, with products that they may not be able to afford?
Should companies be allowed to develop products that are specifically targeted at ethnic groups?
My answer to each of these questions, except the first one, would emphatically be, Yes.
Why should a company be restricted from merchandising a product to an independent, rationally thinking, adult?
Don't I, as an adult, have the power to determine for myself, with some exceptions, what I want to buy?
Now, if there are issues of mental incapacity we have a whole separate issue to address.
But, assumptive that the consumer is able to make their own decisions; shouldn't I as a vender be able to present information that will help the consumer decide that my product is what they want?
Is targeting of minorities exploitative? Yes, it certainly is. But, so is well-nig every other rather merchandising. You are trying to exploit a need, a want and emphatically a gap in a market that possibly has not been self-addressed.
Prior to the 1960's most merchandising neglected ethnic minority groups and concentrated on the vast buying power of large demographic groups. An chance existed for companies to address a market, with significant buying power, that had not been self-addressed before. Is that inherently wrong? That is the way merchandising works: Find a gap, develop a plan to address the gap, then market to it gap. That is sound business practice. If companies do not take advantage of their opportunities they will fail.
Now, none of what I have said above gives companies a free license to do any they want, especially when it comes to my one, very absolute exception: Marketing to children and those who cannot be held causal their actions. Even as an adult, if I am not capable of making a choice as to the soundness of a buying decision, then I should not be subjected to merchandising that may have unreasonable influence over me; And children are certainly not capable of making that decision. However, as an adult parent, I must assume some of the responsibility for buying products that are marketed to children. I must educate my children about what is right and what is wrong; what is a want versus what is a need; what is low-budget versus what is not.
Companies who choose to direct their merchandising efforts at specific market segments have a responsibility to consider the ethical implications of what they are doing. Socially responsible merchandising calls for target merchandising that serves not only the company's interests, but also the interests of those targeted and the public in general.
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