Question

U.S. companies are generally not allowed to discriminate on the basis of religion or sexual orientation when hiring. Should marketers be allowed to target consumers on the basis of religion or sexual orientation?

Answer 1

Yes, marketers should be allowed to target their customers on the basis of religion or sexual orientation. As, it makes marketer to understand their target customers & their needs better. This implies that businesses are able to better satisfy their customers on the basis of better understanding of their needs.

Examples:

• Products are ethically marketed to the specific gender using the product solely or relatively more. Female cosmetics & male cosmetics products are marketed to men & women respectively.
• Marketing is also done by targeting a religion, cultural group. Eg : Various festivals items are majorly bought by the religional - cultural group celebrating that festival, & so the respective group can be tapped & targetted as a potential market for the same.

However, the marketers should be careful that this special personalised & customised customer targetting based on people's community : should be done in a careful manner, & should not hurt anybody's sentiments or socially desirable norms.