The cynical use of marketing to the unwitting consumer

Abstract

Purpose

To show how marketing is accused of having all sorts of powers to control consumers and segmentation itself is often accused of abusing consumers, and yet there are many times when marketing people who should know better unethically abuse consumer targets’ naïve willingness to believe all sorts of nonsense.

Design/methodology/approach

Points out the potential unethical nature of marketing practices that could take advantage of consumers’ inability to know or understand the truth of the matter.

Findings

A growing number of books and articles describe the limits of human understanding, or how there are many things people believe that are not true. For some people, ignorance is simply a point of view. Yet it is patently unethical when marketing people take materials they know are false and sell to people not able to know better.

Practical implications

Marketing is not inherently unethical, but the worst of practices make all others look bad. At best, many marketing decision makers are too often amoral, and do not even consider the morality of what they do. This describes a distinction of clearly immoral approaches to marketing practice.

Originality/value

Stating the difference between simply meeting consumer needs and abusing consumers.

Citation

Rotfeld, H.J. (2005), "The cynical use of marketing to the unwitting consumer", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp. 60-61. https://doi.org/10.1108/07363760510595931