Ethical Implication Of Target Marketing

When it comes targeting specific markets, marketers must constantly be aware of ethical forms of advertising their products. Ethical implications can make or break a companies target market strategy. In terms of reaching specific groups of consumers, stereotypes and discrimination are ethical implications of a target market. Two groups of consumers such as Gender and age have marketers that attempt to sell towards them in specific ways. These marketing efforts can be ethical or unethical depending on the situation.
Ethical implication of target marketing in terms of reaching specific groups of consumers includes stereotyping and discriminating. First, stereotyping is an ethical implication because its assumptions that a certain group with …show more content…
The first group is gender. A major category where you can see first hand examples is in the toy industry. Whenever you go to stores such a Target or Wal-Mart there is a girls and boys toy section. Marketers attempt to sell toys to girls by using pink or purple colors, dolls and fashion. Marketers sell to boys by using certain colors as well, such as blue. They also have more action related products. In advertisements for the toy, if there is a boy playing with the toy this will make other boys want to play with it as well. This also goes for girls. According to article Guys and Dolls No More? By Elizabeth Sweet in The New York Times, she states, “There are several reasons gender-based marketing have become so prevalent. On a practical level, toy makers know that by segmenting the market into narrow demographic groups, they can sell more versions of the same toy. And nostalgia often drives parents and grandparents to give toys they remember from their own childhood.” Another group of consumers that marketers attempt to sell specific products too is age. An example of this is Target having a college section. This markets towards all college age people. They sell appealing products specifically for this group. This is not targeting towards anyone else other than college students. Target also does this at the right time of year, they start setting up the sections mid summer because they know college kids start to shop because school starts sometime in August. Life alert is another example that is marketed towards the elderly. While life alert can help anybody it’s marketed more towards the elderly because it’s more beneficial. They show TV commercials that strongly show how life alert is useful by having an elderly person being in a situation when they could use life alert and it shows how it saved their