Question

Ethics in Target Marketing

Context: Targeting is when a company is focusing on specific segments when it is promoting. However, targeting to children, teens, and other vulnerable populations using emotions can be seen as unethical.

Inquiry: Is targeting unethical or is it a good marketing tactic?

Follow-up: Identify the arguments on both sides of the issue and present your opinion.

Answer 1

Targeting are the techniques by a company in order to exploit the emotions of various groups of consumers so they can retain both group for longer period of time and it can be said that these type of techniques are used for inducing the customers to purchase the product by exploiting their emotions and retaining those customer for longer-term.

Targeting is not unethical in nature because targeting means that the business will be having an opportunity in order to read the behaviour of various consumer and exploit the opportunities which are available in the market so it is not unethical because it is leading to capitalise upon the emotions of the customers in order to provide them with a better product so I do not think the targeting is an unethical approach.

I think targeting is sometimes to be unethical because they are trying to exploit the unnecessary and unethical side of various customers and they will be trying to force their products on to their lifestyle as they will be trying to exploit the emotions to a bad level and they will be trying to target various sections of vulnerable population like children and teens, so they will be trying to force their parents in order to buy the products and hence it will be an unethical approach.

targeting should always be measured and calculated and it should be done within the boundaries and it should not be hurting the sentiment. These companies should be trying to discount the behaviour of various customers but they should always be rational in nature and they should be acting within the boundaries and they should not be adopting to unethical practices.