Companies out in the market try different pitches or tactics to lure new customers into buying their products or services. While doing so, the marketing department uses deceptive techniques and lies and targets new uninformed consumers to sell their products and to boost the profit revenues of the company. This is considered a great business tool in the market but it is not an ethical way of marketing because consumers are unclear about the elements contained in a product (Fong). Building on this argument, this paper claims and defends that providing a product to any uninformed consumers is a violation of basic consumer rights and thus it is an unethical business practice to target uninformed consumers.
Targeting an uninformed consumer is an unethical practice when a corporation deliberately excludes information about the product to cut operating costs. This way, consumers may gain a false perception of how a product can impact them potentially. This can lead to manipulating the customers into supporting a potentially harmful product or service that can affect an “in-target” consumer’s health as well as the company’s reputation (Smith and Cooper-Martin). Therefore, consumers have the right to know what they are buying or consuming. Moreover, businesses often agree that targeting uninformed consumers with no prior information about the product can help them build a more efficient profit as they can reach new potential customers in this way, but this is an unacceptable practice because consumers may suffer from this (Fong).
In conclusion, targeting uninformed consumers is by all means an unethical and unacceptable practice in the business world because it can badly affect the trust and loyalty of a consumer over a company and its product. In the long run, businesses that offer accurate information regarding the product or service are more likely to reap the rewards of earning loyal and potential customers as well as long-term success in the competitive business market.
Works Cited
Fong, Yuk-fai. “When Do Experts Cheat and Whom Do They Target?” RAND Journal of Economics, 2005, pp. 113–30.
Smith, N. Craig, and Elizabeth Cooper-Martin. “Ethics and Target Marketing: The Role of Product Harm and Consumer Vulnerability.” Journal of Marketing, vol. 61, no. 3, 1997, pp. 1–20.
