Marketing Encourages People to Purchase What They Do Not Need Possibly the criticism most frequently made about marketing is that marketers are only concerned with getting customers to buy whether they want the product or not. The root of this argument stems from the belief that marketers are only out to satisfy their own needs and really do not care about the needs of their customers.
Exaggerating benefits of using a product Marketers are often criticized for exaggerating the benefits offered by their products. This is especially the case with the part of marketing that engages in customer communication, such as advertising and sales people. The most serious problems arise when product claims are seen as misleading customers into believing a product can offer a certain level of value that, in fact, it cannot. E.g. the way lotion are made to portray light skinned people as if when a customer purchases lotion and apply to their skin they will also look like that. And further more on unethical practice are such things like expiry date not displayed on certain items. Some marketers do not display the expiry date on their products they offer and hence they make a heath hazard.
Exorbitant pricing A key to marketing success is to engage in a deliberate process that identifies customers who offer marketers the best chance for satisfying organizational objectives. This method, called target marketing, often drives most marketing decisions, including product development and price setting. But some argue that target marketing leads marketers to focus their efforts primarily on customers who have the financial means to make more expensive purchases. They contend that doing so intentionally discriminates against others, especially lower income customers who cannot afford to purchase higher priced products. This group ends ups being targeted with lower quality (and in some cases less safe) products or for some groups, no product options. Environmental degradation
The Term Paper on New Product Launch Marketing Plan, Part II
The following is the second part to the iNKtopia product launch plan. The second part of the marketing plan consists of a detailed target market profile, including buying behaviors, decision motivators, and organizational target markets. The plan also includes steps to manage each stage of the product life cycle and tactical plans for the Four P’s. Finally, the second part of the marketing plan ...
The loudest complaint against marketing concerns its impact on the environment. Those critical of marketing’s effect on the environment point to such issues as: * The use of excessive, non-biodegradable packaging (e.g., use of plastics, placing small products in large packages, etc.) * The continual development of resource consuming products (e.g., construction of new buildings, stadium, shopping malls, etc.) * The proliferation of unsightly and wasteful methods of promotions (e.g., outdoor billboards, direct mail, etc.).
Marketers have begun to respond to these concerns by introducing “green marketing” campaigns that are not only intended to appease critics but also take advantage of potential business opportunities. For example, auto makers see opportunity by creating new fuel efficient hybrid vehicles, the demand for which has accelerated in the last few years. Also, certain retailers are finding financial opportunity and promotional value by asserting their marketing muscle to encourage customers to become more environmentally responsible.
Cultural pollution Critics charge the marketing system with creating cultural pollution. Our senses are being assaulted constantly by advertising. This devious practice is inflicted on children every day. Commercials interrupt serious programmer; pages of ads obscure printed matter; billboards, beautiful scenery.
These interruptions continuously pollute people’s minds with messages of materialism, sex, power or status. Children’s constant exposure to advertising, the protectionists argue, creates mercenary kids, experts in ‘pester power’, who force their downtrodden and beleaguered parents into spending enormous sums of money on branded goods and the latest crazes. Marketers answer the charges of ‘commercial noise’ with the following arguments. First, they hope that their ads reach primarily the target audience. But because of miss-communication channels, some ads are bound to reach people who have no interest in the product and are therefore bored or annoyed.
The Essay on Ethics of Advertising to Children
... in ten adults agree that business marketing and advertising exploit children by convincing them to buy ... future adults, to entertain them and to create loyal shoppers. Kmart has gone one ... beauty care items. Young people these days are so wealthy that children 4 to 12 ... children also appears to be gaining momentum, providing retailers and manufacturers with a tightrope on which to navigate. As marketers ...
As for TV advertising’s influence on children, free marketers point to European research that shows that parents and peers influence children in more than advertising. Trend products like yoyos and laka kala, giggies and Manchoze have reached the top without a penny spent on TV commercials. Children are not empty vessels helplessly vulnerable to marketers.
Too much materialism Critics have charged that the marketing system urges too much interest in material possessions. The critics do not view this interest in material things as a natural state of mind. But rather as a matter of false wants created by marketing. Businesses spend huge sums of money to hire advertising agencies to stimulate people’s desires for goods, and advertisers use the mass media to create materialistic models of the good life. People work harder to earn the necessary money.
Their purchases increase the output of he nation’s industry and industry, in turn, uses the advertising industry to stimulate more desire for the industrial output. Thus marketing is seen as creating false wants that benefit industry more than they benefit consumer. These criticisms overstate the power of business to create needs. People have strong defenses against advertising and other marketing tools. Marketers are most effective when they appeal to existing wants rather than when they attempt to create new ones.
