Marketing to specific groups of consumers, or target marketing, is one of the most important concepts in marketing.

Marketers, over the years, have identified who their customers are and directed their efforts to influence their purchasing decisions. That is your job.

However, in the last 30 years, marketers have begun to identify potential buyers based on a number of factors that make many people uncomfortable. Marketers now target promotions to people of certain age groups, gender, race, marital status, gender preferences, and just about any other category you can put people into.

This causes many consumers and consumer advocates to question the ethics of these promotions:

Is it fair to target advertisements at children when they do not have the understanding and/or ability to judge what is presented to them?

Is it fair to target ads to older people, living on fixed incomes, with products they may not be able to afford?

Should companies be allowed to develop products specifically targeting ethnic groups?

My answer to each of these questions except the first would definitely be Yes.

Why should a company be restricted from marketing a product to an independent, rational-thinking adult?

Don’t I, as an adult, have the ability to determine for myself, with a few exceptions, what I want to buy?

Now, if there are issues of mental incapacity, we have a completely different problem to deal with.

But, assuming that the consumer is capable of making his own decisions; Shouldn’t I, as a marketer, be able to present information that helps the consumer decide that my product is what they want?

Is targeting minorities exploitative? Yes, it certainly is. But so is just about any other type of marketing. You are trying to exploit a need, a want, and definitely a gap in a market that may not have been addressed.

Before the 1960s, most marketing ignored minority ethnic groups and focused on the vast purchasing power of larger demographic groups. An opportunity existed for companies to target a market, with significant purchasing power, that had not been addressed before. Is that inherently wrong? That’s the way marketing works: Find a gap, develop a plan to address the gap, and then market that gap. That is good business practice. If companies do not take advantage of their opportunities, they will fail.

Now, nothing I’ve said above gives companies a free license to do whatever they want, especially when it comes to my one absolute exception: marketing to kids and those who can’t be held accountable for their actions. Even as an adult, if I am unable to make up my mind about the soundness of a purchase decision, then I should not be subject to marketing that may have an unreasonable influence on me; And children are certainly not capable of making that decision. However, as an adult parent, I must bear some of the responsibility for purchasing products that are marketed to children. I must educate my children about what is right and what is wrong; what is a want versus what is a need; what is affordable versus what is not.

Companies that choose to direct their marketing efforts to specific market segments have a responsibility to consider the ethical implications of what they are doing. Socially responsible marketing requires targeted marketing that serves not only the interests of the company, but also the interests of the recipients and the general public.