Ethics often consist of a gray and fuzzy area that may not have a sensibility of wrong and right. Given the widespread practices of unethical marketing in today’s world, it is necessary to evaluate specific topics that challenge an understanding of ethics in business. Unethical marketing may send the wrong signals about a brand’s services and products, destroying its reputation and leading to litigation problems. Therefore, marketers should strive to avoid unethical practices for moral and business reasons. One example of unethical marketing is targeting vulnerable consumers such as the elderly, the mentally ill, and children (Kennedy et al., 2019). Although targeting vulnerable customers can be avoided, companies use the practice to influence consumer buying decisions, causing multiple repercussions for consumers and society.
Explanation of The Unethical Practice
Targeting vulnerable customers is an unethical practice that markets products and services to populations considered susceptible to physical, economic, social, and psychological harm. Vulnerable populations are disadvantaged and often have unequal societal power. Consumer vulnerability in marketing refers to a powerlessness state that originates from a lack of balance in interactions in the market and how marketing products and messages are consumed. Consumer vulnerability happens when a customer lacks control, making them depend on external factors such as marketers for a fair marketplace. A consumer’s vulnerability is caused by an interaction of external conditions, individual states, and personal characteristics in contexts where the goals of consumption can be hindered (Kennedy et al., 2019). As a result, the social and personal perceptions of consumers’ selves are impacted.
Vulnerable consumers can be categorized into four groups depending on their characteristics. The first category includes a customer who may have physical vulnerability if they are susceptible to certain products on the market. Physical susceptibility may involve allergies and sensitivity to substances that are marketed to consumers. Customers can also be cognitively vulnerable if they cannot process information cognitively. In addition, they may not have the capacity to know if the information has been manipulated or withheld in deceptive ways. For instance, the elderly, children, and the uneducated are cognitively vulnerable. Customers can be motivationally vulnerable when they cannot resist normal enticements because of individual characteristics. Examples of the motivationally vulnerable include those who are gravely ill and grieving. Some consumers can be socially vulnerable if their social environment reduces their chances of resisting various enticements and appeals that can harm them (Kennedy et al., 2019). The poor, new mothers, and the grieving are victims of their social environment.
Several brands target vulnerable consumers in their advertising efforts. For instance, Target used unethical marketing strategies to influence the buying decisions of pregnant women. Pregnant women are vulnerable in the sense that most of them experience a major event in their lives, which makes them unable to identify sinister marketing strategies from companies. Target collected massive data amounts and used computational inferencing to estimate when consumers would be pregnant. After discerning the due date of an unsuspecting pregnant woman, the company tailored ads to the consumers, specifically baby-related advertisements. The company assumed that consumers would not know if they had been spied on. The Target example shows how a brand can manipulate vulnerable consumers into buying targeted products without their knowledge (Callanan et al., 2021). In addition, the practice violated the privacy rights of pregnant women, making it unethical.
Google is another brand that targets vulnerable customers, especially children. Google was fined $170 million for violating the U.S. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) (Callanan et al., 2021). The company illegally and knowingly harvested the personal data of children and used the information for profit. Google added millions of dollars in revenue by utilizing children’s data to deliver targeted ads. In another instance involving Google, the company paid $500 million to the U.S. government for allowing illegal pharmacies to place ads on its web platforms (Callanan et al., 2021). The firm was complicit by allowing promoters to sell prescription medicine considered fake to gravely ill persons. The Google example shows the company circumvented human targets’ awareness by influencing the purchasing decisions of vulnerable populations, including children and desperately ill people.
Why The Practice Is Deemed Unethical
Targeting vulnerable customers in marketing is unethical due to three reasons. First, vulnerable individuals have less capacity compared to ordinary market consumers to make informed decisions about marketing messages. In essence, vulnerable populations cannot sufficiently protect and identify their interests as ordinary customers do. Thus, marketing products to vulnerable groups in a manner that exploits their vulnerability is similar to treating them fairly (Kennedy et al., 2019). As a result, it is morally wrong to use a person’s vulnerability as a source of profit for corporations.
In addition, the rights ethical approach would suggest that targeting vulnerable customers is morally wrong. The approach emphasizes the need for the ethical rights of affected persons or entities to be protected. Furthermore, it focuses on the belief that every human has a dignity right. The most important argument in the rights approach stipulates that action must treat people or humanity as an end in itself instead of a means to a goal. Considering consumer vulnerability and targeted advertising, customers are treated as a means to an end. Corporations consider consumers as the appropriate means to generate or increase profits (Crane et al., 2019). Therefore, under the rights ethical theory, targeting vulnerable groups in marketing is morally wrong.
Why It Works
Targeting vulnerable consumer populations is often successful due to various reasons. The success is also supported by the use of data mining and automated predictions which enables focused marketing. Furthermore, automated predictions and data mining allow marketers to know the preferences of vulnerable populations, including health conditions. As a result, the ability of corporations to utilize the information gained from focused marketing to effectively influence vulnerable consumers’ decisions increases. The data mining process starts by extracting information from collected data. Analytical tools such as inferential processes, statistical techniques, and algorithms (Callanan et al., 2021). Automated predictions are facilitated by analytical tools and artificial intelligence, leading to correct determinations of individual characteristics such as viewing habits, dislikes and likes, and daily needs.
In addition, targeting vulnerable customers works because it exploits the decision-making vulnerabilities that susceptible people possess according to marketers. Thus, marketers can undermine consumer decision-making, potentially influencing purchase choices. Vulnerable populations may respond positively to advertising due to their emotional vulnerabilities. They include fear of social embarrassment and inadequacy, worry over physical harm, intense need to be loved and appreciated, and physical appearance insecurities. Marketers can use the perceptual vulnerabilities of consumers to influence purchasing decisions. Perceptual vulnerabilities distort how humans view situations and objects. For example, making adverts that make a product seem larger or bigger than its size relies on perceptual vulnerabilities to impact buying behavior (Callanan et al., 2021). Finally, marketers can take advantage of cognitive vulnerabilities that affect how humans remember and think such as using heuristic generalizations.
Consequences
There are several consequences associated with targeting vulnerable consumers. First, the practice leads to intrepid and immature decision-making among customers. Quick decision-making may determine the success of a firm. In essence, it means that most consumer buying decisions are made with no rationality. Marketers compel customers to make purchases quickly due to reduced prices, rebates, and enhanced services if they complete the buy within a specified period. With less time for consumers, if they want to buy products, it coerces them to make abrupt decisions that favor a specific brand (Sigala & Stanhope, 2021). The strategy works for companies that offer timed sales offers, influencing millions of customers to make quick purchasing decisions.
Second, vulnerable populations such as children make food choices based on what they view in media ads. When ads for unhealthy fast food are displayed with compelling messages, children and other vulnerable groups increase their consumption of unhealthy diets. It happens because a lot of fast-food ads are displayed on television programs. Unaware of the dangers of consuming fast foods, unsuspecting consumers eat the foods. As a result, gastric problems, such as peptic ulcer and indigestion, and obesity have increased as city dwellers eat packaged food with artificial colors, tastemakers, and preservatives (Sigala & Stanhope, 2021). Since most vulnerable groups live sedentary lifestyles, their chances of developing cardiovascular diseases increase.
Targeting vulnerable populations may influence their habits and activities. For instance, marketers exploit the insecurities of consumers to encourage them to exercise or buy health products. As a result, teenagers, women, and men become obsessed with staying fit. However, the images used in the ads cannot be trusted since they undergo numerous modifications for aesthetics (Kennedy et al., 2019). In addition, vulnerable consumers may acquire bad habits by watching certain offensive actions such as cigarette smoking.
Application of Ethics in Marketing
Protecting vulnerable populations affected by marketing activities, a paradigm shift. A closer examination of why consumers resign to being targeted by marketers reveals that disengagement primarily impacts their decisions. Disengaged consumers find themselves in vulnerable situations because the consumer market structure promotes a lack of interest through obfuscation. Such a kind of systemic vulnerability facilitates targeted marketing for both vulnerable and ordinary consumers (Riefa, 2022). Since consumers understand they are treated unfairly, they make no effort to shop or discontinue privacy notices.
To protect vulnerable customers, the public and governments must reverse their expectations of consumers to act like market arbiters and average customers with extra protection given to the vulnerable. Consumers have been rendered powerless by machines that make inferences about them, presenting and framing product choices for them. Therefore, society needs to consider vulnerability as an essential part of humans. In that sense, it can be easy to reverse the expectations placed on consumers. The notion that consumers must defend themselves using imperfect instruments should be abandoned (Riefa, 2022). Instead, the focus should be on businesses behaving fairly since fairness in consumer environments must be by design and should not be done to remedy mistakes after they occur.
Conclusion
In conclusion, targeting vulnerable consumers is unethical and avoidable; however, marketers utilize the practice to influence buying decisions of various customers, which impacts individuals and society. Consumer vulnerability differs depending on the context and nature of an incident. Nonetheless, consumers are susceptible to harm when brands use unethical marketing strategies on them. Examples of vulnerable groups in advertising include children, the solemnly ill, and the elderly. Targeting vulnerable customers is considered unfair and unethical because it takes advantage of a consumer’s weakness of vulnerability. Overall, vulnerable groups can be protected by reversing expectations of responsibility and holding all businesses accountable for their fairness.
References
Callanan, G. A., Perri, D. F., & Tomkowicz, S. M. (2021). Targeting vulnerable populations: The ethical implications of data mining, automated prediction, and focused marketing. Business and Society Review, 126(2), 155-167. Web.
Crane, A., Matten, D., Glozer, S., & Spence, L.J. (2019). Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and sustainability in the age of globalization (5th ed.). Oxford University Press.
Kennedy, A. M., Jones, K., & Williams, J. (2019). Children as vulnerable consumers in online environments. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 53(4), 1478-1506. Web.
Riefa, C. (2022). Protecting vulnerable consumers in the digital single market. European Business Law Review, 33(4). Web.
Sigala, D. M., & Stanhope, K. L. (2021). An exploration of the role of sugar-sweetened beverage in promoting obesity and health disparities. Current Obesity Reports, 10(1), 39-52. Web.