Targeting children is a sound business practice

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Based on the demographic, psychographic, and geographic persona of the consumers, target
marketing is an important contrivance. It allows businesses to define their potential customers
based on their requirements. Following the needs of the customers, marketers put efforts to
attract or influence the interest of customers’ buying preferences. However, there has been a
continuous debate on the ethical validity of target marketing and its influence on consumer
behavior. As marketers gradually adapt advertising programs to aim market segments, several
critics have accused these practices as manipulative. Others contradict that these marketing
programs are a shot increase business as well as knowledge of customers about different
products (Cross, Belich & Rudelius, 2015).

A positive place has been taken by my side in this approaching issue that targeting children for
business development in no way has a negative impact on children. Because the practices of
targeting segments by age or a dependent group of consumers particularly provide accurate
information they require. By this, the decision making of buying preferences and be able to
choose the best out of hundred. However, it has been argued that influencing children's minds by
targeting them through advertisements is not ethical. This because children are not able to
monetize their right and wrong needs as well as products. It means that advertising targets
children who are disingenuous and unfair. Contradicting the above-mentioned facts, it has to be
said that children are being watched and assisted by liable parenting that does not let children
watch misleading information played on television (John& Sengottuvelu, 2017). Parents are
accountable to guide their children to the difference between right and wrong. Moreover, parents
themselves know what type of children's demands should be fulfilled. Besides, it is also affable
to state that marketers do not create wellbeing and affect the potential of the parent control. Also,
none of the targeting activities put pressure of being watched or purchased. It is just another way
of promoting a business or product to spread accurate knowledge and stand out different in the
market. Hence, it is right to say that targeting children is a sound business practice and not at all
exploitative as the final decision and awareness depends upon the buying head (Kubacki,
Rundle-Thiele, Lahtinen, & Parkinson, 2015). Besides, the marketers are also accountable to
withdraw their goods or services parallel to negative responses.

Now the question arises that children have no money to buy the products they want and
completely depend on parents to fulfill their desires. So, it is natural that children start nagging

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for expensive and unwanted things which are possibly become irritating for parents to handle.
This behavior of the child sometimes pushes parents to punish or become harsh towards them.
But it cannot be ignored that advertising activities are just a means of promoting businesses. It
has no magical impact on craft abnormal desires and the nagging nature of children depends
upon their upbringing (Mathai& Dharmaraj, 2017). These issues of poor parenting and
disobedient children cannot be resolved by banning children's segmentation marketing. Talking
about children's expenses, it is undoubtedly accepted that children even under the age of 12
receive pocket money, and teenagers are supposed to earn a little for their small requirements.
Moreover, parents also want their children must learn the value of money and know-how to
manage their needs according to their pockets. This practice not only makes children happy but
also teaches responsibility and knowledge of social surroundings. It is also said that the market
targeting children brings harmful communal consequences, as there are unhealthier or junk foods
which are unhealthy children. Consuming unhealthy or junk foods can lead to obese, unhealthy
teenagers with bad intake routine (Sonntag, Schneider, Mdege, Ali, & Schmidt, 2015). This will
ultimately lead to high medical expenses. Contradicting the point of consuming unhealthy foods,
today’s generation is very much concerned about their health and fitness. As a result, they prefer
foods that are rich in proteins and healthy nutrients. Their buying interest, therefore, leads to
foods provide the energy and help in healthy growth. Also, advertisements contribute to the
economy as well, and therefore banning advertisements will also result in a bad economy
(Bamfo, Kraa, Asabere, & Atarah, 2019). Moreover, the government would not able to use this
practice in promoting other things as well.

Aiming children empowers marketers to gain viable benefits. This practice implies to identify
existing marketing function and to address appropriate needs of the consumers. It is not applied
to exploit market segmentation to gain profits (Gupta, & Pirsch, 2014). Parents’ buying
preferences are highly influenced by their offspring choices, so children play a significant role
infamily shopping. Moreover, marketers see children as future consumers of their services and
therefore prioritize the needs of children. Studies have also revealed that children segmentation
grasp a definite power as customers and their preferences of buying goes ahead of selecting
cereals and toys (Jashari & Kotsios, 2019). Thus, parents show a strong perception that
marketing media is a source of inspiration to select the best for their children (Vasumathi&
Banudevi, 2018). Children targeting also enables new marketers to establish their identity among

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already established businesses and give them tough competition. They also get competitive
advantages against the businesses that aim the whole diverse segments. Making children as a
large consumer at introduction phase of marketing can help the business to gain better monetary
achievement so long as their practices does not affect other ethics of the market as well as the
targeted segment in negative manner.

Concluding all the arguments, marketing is a smart way of promoting services and recognizing
potential customers of particular services. It does not about manipulate children’s mind and
gaining profits. It is about standing out different in market and spreading appropriate information
about the services. With these in stand, targeting children is an ethical tool for marketers to
recognize market bases and customers’ preferences to address them with priority (Figueiredo et
al., 2020).However, it is also important to follow government regulations to avoid exploitation
and negative impact of advertisements on children.

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References
Bamfo, B. A., Kraa, J. J., Asabere, P., & Atarah, B. A. (2019). Effect of television adverts on
children’s purchase behaviour: Evidence from Ghana. Cogent Business & Management, 6(1),
1614740.

Figueiredo, F., Giori, F., Soares, G., Arantes, M., Almeida, J. M., & Benevenuto, F. (2020, July).
Understanding Targeted Video-Ads in Children's Content. In Proceedings of the 31st ACM
Conference on Hypertext and Social Media (pp. 151-160).

Gupta, S., & Pirsch, J. (2014). Consumer evaluation of target marketing to the bottom of the
pyramid. Journal of International Consumer Marketing, 26(1), 58-74.

Jashari, A., & Kotsios, P. (2019). Greek Consumers’ Behaviour Towards Fast-Food
Consumption. International Journal of Marketing Studies, 11(3).

John, C., & Sengottuvelu, C. (2017). Television Advertisement: Children's Purchase Preferences
of Confectionary Products. SCMS Journal of Indian Management, 14(3), 78-86.

Kubacki, K., Rundle-Thiele, S., Lahtinen, V., & Parkinson, J. (2015). A systematic review
assessing the extent of social marketing principle use in interventions targeting children (2000-
2014). Young Consumers.

Mathai, S. T., & Dharmaraj, A. (2017). A Study on the Parent’s Perspective Regarding the
Impulse Buying behaviour of Children in Retail Outlets of Cochin City with Special Reference
to Snacks. International Journal of Research in Arts and Science, 3(Special Issue Special Issue),
26-28.

Cross, J. C., Belich, T. J., & Rudelius, W. (2015). How marketing managers use market
segmentation: An exploratory study. In Proceedings of the 1990 Academy of Marketing Science
(AMS) Annual Conference (pp. 531-536). Springer, Cham.

Sonntag, D., Schneider, S., Mdege, N., Ali, S., & Schmidt, B. (2015). Beyond food promotion: a
systematic review on the influence of the food industry on obesity-related dietary behaviour
among children. Nutrients, 7(10), 8565-8576.

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Vasumathi, M. T., & Banudevi, D. P. (2018). The Major Factors Influencing Parents Buying
Behaviour of Children Products. Researchers World, 9(2), 91.