The Manipulation By Marketers Of The Psychological Behavior Of The Elderly And The Youth
In case of the elderly, in spite of the fact that the majority of marketers and retailers are truthful, a handful of deceitful ones aim towards old people. Foul, nasty schemes such as sweepstakes, fraudulent travel awards, and free gift and get rich quick offers can afflict the elderly. Separate issues stem from misleading telemarketers, deceptive door-to-door salesman, and dishonest advertisers who prey on the elderly whom they may be convinced to be lonely and isolated. Despite the fact that most services and products may be purchased in a multitude of unethical ways, those are frequently correlated with unethical advertisements to the elderly, including home improvements, medical devices, insurance, repairs, cures, investments, and recreational premises like membership camping and time-shares.
Another issue for the elderly happens to be shopping by mail. The most notorious complaint in the United States of America are mail order problems, in fact. Even though there are numerous highly-regarded firms, there are many that misrepresent and overprice their services and products. As well, in both Canada and the US, telemarketing fraud targeted towards the elderly has become an increasing issue. The United States Justice Department approximates that telemarketing fraud is The U.S. Justice Department estimates telemarketing fraud is costing victims $40 billion a year.
Many unethical marketers especially aim towards the elderly because, compared to younger people, they’re less likely to report these unethical practices. They don’t report them because they fear they’ll be seen as incapable of handling their own affairs. State and federal laws give assistance to these people. These laws include violations relating to a number of different customer issues aimed at the elderly, such as prizes that require purchase, mail order, telecommunications fraud, home improvement schemes, and false advertising.
On the other side of the marketing spectrum, food companies that do not identify genetically modified food behave unethically because they take advantage of uninformed consumers. Many consumers who oppose GMO foods believe that companies are required by law to identify GMO products. The Food and Drug Administration requires food producers to include calorie information and ingredients on the labels of packaged food. A recent study shows that about 75% of Americans think that GMO labeling is required by the Food and Drug Administration. Food companies that sell genetically modified food without labeling it as such are behaving unethically in order to take advantage of uninformed consumers. Some believe food companies are not being unethical when they promote sugary energy drinks and energy bars as food that will enhance athletic performance because these food items actually deliver nutrients, such as protein, that help keep the body strong. But in actuality, the high sugar content of energy foods overrides any benefits of their healthy ingredients.
To conclude, predatory marketing to uninformed and/or vulnerable consumers is unethical. When the consumers are kids, the probable power of marketing techniques to persuade consumers undoubtedly raises questions of ethics. Every organization ought to make a mindful decision as to what sort of ethical viewpoint it is to take, concerning children. After all, marketers have to contemplate the significant ethical issues in marketing to the youth because kids do not have the ability to fathom the different mixed promotional messages of which they spot every day. Nevertheless, these promotional mixed messages have the ability to sway kids in order to target them. Therefore, the manipulation of the psychological behavior of the elderly and the youth is a remarkably serious ethical issue and marketers should be conscious of it. Definitively, is it ethical to target uninformed consumers? No: no, it’s not.
