Question

For Consumer Behavior (MARKETING COURSE):

Discuss the five key consumption controversies related to marketing and consumer ethics: underage drinking and smoking, idealized self-images, compulsive gambling, obesity, and privacy. Make sure to address the marketing implications associated with these five consumption controversies.

Answer 1

As the most visible form of marketing, advertising is one of the principal motors of a capitalist economy and also one of the largest modern industries. Advertisements not only inform consumers of available products, services, promotions, and sales, they serve a vital business function by allowing brands to distinguish themselves from competitors, which rewards firms for improving the quality of their offerings. Advertising is a key ally for innovation, because advertising allows firms to create awareness and desire among consumers to buy new products. Despite these benefits, the advertising industry has long been suspected of using devious tactics. As a result, many consumers are highly skeptical and even disdainful of advertising in general.

Most parents want to keep their children away from alcohol and smoking as long as possible. Early-onset drinking can cause problems not only while they are still teens, but also later in life. Discussing the dangers of underage drinking with your middle-school age or younger children is one step in protecting them from the pressures and enticements of drinking and smoking.  Advertising of gambling is a potential public health issue if it can be shown that advertising has a direct and material effect on gambling participation or that advertising has a direct affect on problem gambling outcomes. It is argued that there has to be a strong commitment to socially responsible behaviour across the gambling industry. Socially responsible advertising should form one of the elements of protection afforded to ordinary customers and be reflected in codes of practice. Furthermore, children and problem gamblers deserve additional shielding from exposure to gambling products and premises, and their advertising.junk-food marketing each year influence what children eat-and what they pester their parents to buy. That’s why curbing junk-food marketing to children is an urgently needed strategy for obesity prevention. Also important is giving consumers more information about what’s really in their food, by standardizing nutrition labels and adding calorie information to restaurant menus. Changes in food marketing and labeling can make it easier for everyone to make better food choices, and may also nudge food producers to create healthier offerings.

Even today, marketers can collect a wealth of data on on consumers online. To provide customers with a positive, personalized experience, we need their data. However, all marketers are also legally obligated to treat this private personal data respectfully and fairly. To do so, you must be transparent about how you’re using data to inform your marketing activities.Truly protecting customer data involves more than defending your network from hackers and posting a boilerplate privacy policy.