Exploitive Marketing Targeting Minority Communities: A Debate - Essay Example

 Marketing Debate – Is Target Marketing Ever Bad? Introduction: This short essay is presented in the context of ethical marketing principles and is an attempt to present the features of exploitive marketing with special emphasis to minority communities. Many companies practice exploitive marketing especially targeting minorities and children. It is important to first distinguish between exploitive marketing and genuinely ethical marketing and then take a stand to oppose exploitive marketing in line with its damaging features. Exploitive Marketing – what does this mean? Exploitive marketing essentially targets the vulnerabilities of the people of target market segment – like the minorities. The companies target two major vulnerabilities of the minorities – susceptibility and disadvantage. Targeted marketing by virtue of market segmentation is a popular strategy that works very well for many organizations. However, segmenting the market by virtue of religion, caste, races, etc. often results in the primary mission of marketing to satisfy customer needs getting completely lost thus resulting in strategies that are malicious to the customers and the overall society. A prominent example is the marketing strategy of promoting addiction – like alcohol, tobacco, improvement in sexual capabilities, harmful energy pills (often comprising of drugs), etc. Some companies view the minorities as more vulnerable to addiction and hence promote the same to extreme unethical levels in the greed to extract maximum money out of their pockets. In the view of the author, no marketing professional should practice addiction promotion in any of their campaigns across the world. Addiction is never a need of the customer – rather it is a social disease!! Promoting addiction in marketing strategies is like promoting a social agony that hurts the customers and the overall society very badly. [Brenkert, George G. 1998] Is targeting minorities an exploitive marketing? Creating a market segment is never a bad idea. But if the marketing strategists have decided to treat the minority community of a nation as the target segment, they need to be very careful about the ethical aspects of their approach and also very carefully study the genuine needs of such communities. No strategy should target or apparently hurt the sentiments of the minority communities and exploitation of their vulnerabilities by pushing products that boost their negative desires should be strictly prohibited within an organization. It may be wise to include some declarations exhibiting good gesture of the organization within the marketing campaign itself. For example, if alcohol is being marketed there should be health related warnings prominently displayed in the campaign recommending limited usage only. In many countries it is a legal requirement but overall it should be practiced as a moral gesture by the campaign designers. Most of the members of the minority communities are unaware of their vulnerabilities due to the dejection and mental agony that they have been facing historically within a region. They may not be leading the usual lifestyle of the majority communities of the region. This may be due to lack of education or lack of special interest groups promoting awareness about their vulnerabilities. Hence, when an organization promotes special products or services matching their negative habits or addiction, they take it as a positive gesture. The author hereby argues that it is more of the responsibility of the organizations that are targeting them to promote positive awareness and then design the products & campaigns accordingly. It may not result in the same level of revenues as in addiction promotion but definitely will be sustainable and highly appreciated by the world. This may enhance the branding of the organization in the other market segments thus resulting in indirect benefits. Hence, if an organization has decided to develop a prominent market segment of minorities, they should first carry out a survey to discover the threats & vulnerabilities of the target communities and then formulate ethical ground rules that shall be strictly followed by their campaign designers. [Choudhury, Pravat and Cui, Geng. 2003] The Author’s Stand The author’s stand is that the ethical intent of marketing is more important than selection of the segment. Hence, selecting minorities as a market segment may not be unethical; but including discrimination, potentially harmful products, promoting negative emotions (like violence), addiction, etc. in the marketing campaign is highly unethical. The fundamental principle of marketing is to understand and fulfil customer needs. However, the campaign designer of an organization should be intelligent & wise enough to segregate between genuine positive needs and negative addictions. Also, the author hereby argues that while the campaigns may be designed to target minority communities, it should not be mentioned explicitly that the campaign is designed for a particular community. Example, statements like “bright coloured dresses for black African Americans” or “traditional Sufi style dresses for American Muslims” etc. should be avoided in the campaigns. They may appear to be racial although the intent of the campaign is not negative. The objective is to sell a product that may suit the community needs & positive interests and hence the campaign should strictly focus on selling the product as per their choices and avoid any statements that may compromise their equality, justice and fairness in any form. One good gesture shall be to offer higher discounts to poorer communities for the same quality of products used elsewhere. This may promote volume based sales with a hidden feeling among the minorities that the campaign is specially designed for them although not mentioning explicitly to maintain the level of respect and dignity. In fact, the community members shall feel thankful to the company for honouring their poor economics and extending essential commodities (like food, water and clothes) at discounted prices. Many special interest groups may consider this gesture as a charity although the company will benefit from higher volumes. Conclusion: This short essay is pertaining to the sensitive subject of targeting minorities as market segments which is widely popularized as exploitive marketing. The question presented herewith is that whether targeting minorities as market segments ethical or not. The author takes a stand that there is no harm in targeting minorities as a market segment but the campaigns should take special care of their equality, fairness & their vulnerabilities and should design them in order to extend social benefits to fulfil their positive needs (like food, water, clothes, beverages, toiletries, etc.) at discounted rates. Companies should not target their addictions and promote harmful products or services causing harm to their mental stature, physical health, motivation, social commitment, etc. thus overall causing harm to the society. Reference List: Brenkert, George G. Marketing and the Vulnerable. Business Ethics Quarterly. pp7-20. Iss.1. 1998. Choudhury, Pravat and Cui, Geng. Consumer interests and the ethical implications of marketing – a contingency framework. Journal of Consumer Affairs. American Council on Consumer Interests and The Gale Group. Retrieved on 11 March 2009. Available at http://www.allbusiness.com/marketing/market-research/728730-1.html. 2003. End of Document Read More