Public Criticism of Marketing

Introduction

Marketing has been used widely to influence consumer behavior to buy certain services or products. There are different marketing techniques used in this regard. Having said that, there is enough criticism that has been carried out against many of many of these techniques. For example many think that these techniques violate marketing ethics, some believe that the marketing techniques targeting children are not ethical. Then there are people who believe that marketing techniques may be used to target people based on race and culture while violating believes and cultural norms of other races. This discussion goes on and on. In this paper I would be discussing the criticism that has been made widely in regards to marketing influencing a purchasing behavior for unwanted products.

Marketing as a tool to influence people to buy what they do not need

Babin & Harris (2015) have discusses many consumer behaviors that are used by different consumers. One of these behavior is compulsive buying. This behavior is usually caused by many psychological behaviors. I think that the techniques used by marketers by telling the consumers that a certain item can help them live a happy live while it may not do such a thing in the usual life is a factor that might be contributing to compulsive consumer behavior. For example if someone is not feeling happy and is depressed due to any reason and he/she sees an advertisement that tells them that the root cause of the depression is hidden because they do not have a certain luxury car, this could prompt a compulsive shopping behavior in the consumer and he/she would be tempted to buy the car irrespective of the purchasing power that is possessed by the consumer.

Marketers try their best to manipulated consumers into making unnecessary purchasing decisions. This fact pints to the suggestion that the marketers are only interested in making profits and not really interested what the consumers have to go thorough while making a purchasing decision prompted by the marketing techniques used by the marketers.

Conclusion

I would like to stress that marketers have a responsibility to use ethical marketing techniques. They should understand that wellbeing of the consumers does matter and they do not deserve to be manipulated wrongly.