Making Academic Researches Work for Marketers and Shoppers - Essay Example

?Full Making Academic Researches Work for Marketers and Shoppers Shoppers are human beings and should be treated as such.They are not animals that are placed in a box, studied on how they think and respond to their environment and used as guinea pigs in identifying how marketers should design their strategies in selling their goods. Consumers may not be literally placed in a box, but taking samples of their daily activities through video recording is something that could be placed in juxtaposition to such metaphor. People are used as samples for research studies without their knowledge and researchers, using the information about them, pocket millions of dollars. The multi-billion dollars academic research funded by marketers is manipulative and unethical so it should be considered illegal. Marketers have the rights to find ways on how to improve their services to maximize their profits. However, there should be a limit to how they employ such ways and maintain ethical principles as they work. Background Information Large companies hire researchers, consultants, and analysts to conduct studies on the various human behaviors using different methods. Especially during global crisis, companies are more driven to increase their sales profits. According to Gladwell article, “the time per visit that the average American spends in a shopping mall was sixty-six minutes last year down from seventy-two minutes in 1992- and is the lowest number recorded” (Gladwell 95). With economic problems, consumers’ interests of going to malls had fallen. Despite the drop in the number of hours consumers spend in malls, sellers’ profits can be improved through researches on consumer behaviors. Paco Underhill is a researcher who graduated from Columbia who had analyzed hours of shopping videotape in the past decades (Gladwell 95). Through analyzing consumer behaviors, marketers recognize that not all consumers are the same, which is why marketers now do segmentation of consumers. Segmentation is another effective trick and method used by marketers to be able to create the right advertisement for the targeted consumers. Kids are well impacted by the segmentation system. Advertisement has changed rapidly from only a few large companies such as Disney, McDonald, and others, but in our contemporary society, now almost all companies target children for their own benefits. According to Eric Schlosser, “Today children are being targeted by phone companies, oil companies, and automobilecompanies as well as clothing stores and restaurant chains”. Children are exposed to 40,000 commercials per year. American Companies are recorded to spend $800 million per year for kids’ advertisement and the revenues are triple. With $800 initial money, they earned $29 billion revenues. Moreover, the Europeans generate revenues between $620 to $930 million. This shows that kids bring huge profits to many producers. Marketers did not only do surveys but they also focused on kids to be questioned secretly without their parents’ notice to obtain the information. Thanks to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act that took effect on April, 2000, children’s exposure to abuse are a little limited. Nowadays, clubs seem to be the trend in getting to children. “According to one Burger King executive, the creation of a Burger King Kids Club in 1991 increased the sales of children's meals as much as 300 percent” (Schlosser). In addition, researchers found out that about 80 percent of kids dream about animals. This information is used by many marketers to create imaginary figures that will be liked by the young children, used for advertisements to entice them. It is interesting to note how marketers target children because they are easily manipulated due to their immaturity. Lastly, the other technique used by the researchers is Neuromarketing, a process where the possible responses of consumers are studied in order to create products that would meet their ‘needs’. Marketers Marketers conduct research wherever they consider it to be profitable in the future without any regard to its probable effects on consumers. The mall is perceived as a place not just to spend money, but it is a place where one’s physical, emotional, and psychological needs could be met. The mall offers a variety of its visitors’ needs such as clothes, soaps, shoes, bags, and food. It is a place where shoppers are supposed to feel free and happy. It is a place they can offer themselves rewards during payday after working hard for days. It is also a place where they can bring loved ones and buy things for them as a show for their endearment towards them. Nevertheless, the mall has become a dreadful place for shoppers. Nowadays, many marketers conduct their research in malls. Consumers’ privacies are violated. It is unethical for marketers to invade the privacy of individuals. In allowing researches to be conducted in their vicinity, they are giving researchers the license to peek into private lives. EVIDENCE 1 Marketers obtaining consumer behaviors by the use of cameras means abusing consumers’ right of privacy. According to Gladwell when researchers conduct the surveys, “he might use six cameras and two or three trackers and let the study run for two or three days” (Gladwell 95). All cameras are hidden from the eyes of the consumers because getting to know how the researchers work, may affect the result of the studies. Buying necessities or wants in the store is the consumers’ private affair, but when it is recorded and studied by other people, information about the shoppers somehow become like public properties. Gladwell, a New York staff writer, points out, “every time a product is pulled across a supermarket checkout scanner, information is recorded, assembled and sold to a market research firm for analysis” (Gladwell 99). Their appearances in the mall mean that they are exposed to a form of abuse because they are not aware of the research conducted on them. An example about a girl choosing pants for herself is specifically mentioned. She is described as “the girl emerging form the changing room, wearing her first pair” (Gladwell 98). Furthermore, her actions after emerging from the room is seen and analyzed without knowing it. This is a private affair for the customer and her family. There is no one in the world that has the right to look into the lives of law-abiding citizens who are just out in the mall to make a purchase for their daughter. It is a violation of privacy. In a way, shoppers are treated like animals to be studied for the sake of improving marketing strategies. What is more frightening is that, such information generated by them turns into a weapon pointed at them. The records are studied and the results of the research are used to manipulate the consumers, which violate the privacy. As Vassilikopoulou, Siomkos and Rouvaki said, “Some researchers, like Tybout and Zaltman, 1991 (53), have suggested that marketing research is an intrusion into personal data and consumers being a pretence or means for product sales.” This then proves that such activity is not in accordance to human ethics. Evidence 2: Marketers use inappropriate research techniques to target on young children because they see them as easy preys. As mentioned earlier, children were sent emails without their parents’ knowledge. The attempt to keep the parents out from such correspondence shows that marketers wanted information from the children that they could use to manipulate them. Being immature, children an easily believe anything they read or watch. Once they give information about what they want, advertisements and products are made to make children want to have the products. The rest would now be up to the children, to ask their parents to buy things for them. The parents who feel guilty of working long hours and staying away from their children compensate by giving them their every whim. This is not unknown to the marketers. In fact, it is well studied and analyzed. It is mere manipulation. Kids’ clubs may be a better means for marketers to use. Children are given educational activities in clubs and they also learn to deal with other children. However, from the statistics mentioned earlier, millions of dollars are spent on such activities and the clubs brought an unbelievable 300% increase in children’s meals sales. This only shows that marketers give away some benefits to lure children and their parents to buy their products but in return, they gain even more than they give away. Evidence 3 Advertising is a means of manipulation which is a result of academic researches. Using the information from researches to manipulate consumers’ minds can alter consumer decisions. Twitchell says, “The object of advertising is not just to brand parity objects but also to brand consumers as they move through these various communities” (193) meaning, buyers are studied so that there will occur a segmentation that will determine their needs and thus benefit marketers by knowing what pleases the consumers, knowing what and how to sell to them. The statement, “The object of much consumer research is not to try to twist their feathers so that they will flock to your product, but to position your product in such a place that they will have to fly by it and perhaps stop to roost” (Twitchell, 193), clearly shows the manipulation done by researchers and marketers. Looking at the outside cover of this situation, it may seem harmless. However, for one who looks more deeply into it, a person would raise the same question Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, a consumer group highly critical of neuromarketing, asked, “What if they then could trigger this neural activity by various means so as to modify our behavior to serve their own ends?” Indeed, there is a high probability that this could happen. Marketers can think of ways to make consumers think that they need something although in reality, it is not a need at all. Opposing view: On the other hand, researchers and marketers disagree that using academic research is unethical and manipulative. They think that people like Ruskin are just overreacting towards the Neuromarketing techniques (Twitchell, 199). The study of product positioning is not a means of manipulating the consumers because they are just placed where shoppers could easily spot them. Consumers often go to malls with the items to be purchased already decided on their minds. However, when products are not easily spotted, shoppers tend to buy the wrong products. Therefore, it is to the benefit of consumers that products are intelligently positioned to help them have their best buys. REBUTTAL It is recognized that studying consumer is important. However, the benefit may not be mutual. For Stallworth, the “knowledge about consumer behavior can help marketers develop products and shape messages that actually meet people’s needs instead of creating products that ‘trick’ consumers into buying them based on gimmickry.” This is a truly noble objective for marketers and researchers to claim, nevertheless, their motives cannot escape questioning. Researchers and marketers claim that their works are done for the benefit of the consumers but comparing the benefits consumers, marketers and researchers get from the researches shows what the real points are. Undeniably, researchers are paid well for their works just like Underhill whom his mother says is ‘the best paid spy’ (98). Marketers on the other hand, as investors, would want to maximize their profits. No wise investor would just pay thousands or even millions of dollars for researches that would not benefit them. For the consumers though, first their privacy is violated. Then, kids are being targeted. Thirdly, marketers using their tricks are able to manipulate consumers and alter consumers’ decision. Even so, “Singer at al. (1991) suggested that the hazard that comes with the knowledge of consumer behavior is that consumer needs may be guided by the business themselves” (Vassilikopoulou et al., 52). This shows that there is the hazard of manipulation. When marketers know what and how people think and act and can project how they would respond to a certain product, a need can be created and advertisements will be used to introduce the “need” which eventually draws consumers to buy the product. Analyzing the words of Stallworth mentioned earlier, it would actually support the claim of Singer and company. That consumer knowledge can help marketers develop products, confirms that companies indeed use the researches to learn what to sell to the consumers. The messages, which claimed to meet people’s need, can now be placed in juxtaposition with the objective of meeting the marketers’ needs and be weighed in the balanced. A need may not really be a need but since the people who have been studying consumers suggest that a product is needed to benefit them, they would embrace that certain product to really be a need. The marketers’ needs are real but consumers’ needs are created. SOLUTION The best solution to the issue on the misused academic research by marketers is to ban advertisements geared towards children like what was done in 1978 (Schlosser). If doing so would still be impractical and therefore be ineffective, contents of advertisements then should at least be limited on hours parents are available to guide them. Moreover, marketers should at least design products that will not just benefit their business but will also compensate the amount of money parents spend on them. It is recognized that studying consumer behavior is important. However, benefits may not be mutual. Marketers should not be allowed to put cameras on malls without the consumers’ knowledge. In order then to forego with the research and still give the respect consumers deserve, perhaps a notice on malls where studies are being performed should be posted about it. Informed buyers could act intelligently and manipulate sellers instead of giving away how they naturally respond to buying items so they could save money rather than spend more. Buyers who still choose to purchase their goods in such malls give the researchers and marketers the unwritten and unspoken consent of taking record about them and thus remove the guilt from the people concerned. To further strengthen this, a law should be passed ensuring the respect to shopper’s privacy that demands malls and stores performing studies to inform their consumers. References Gladwell, Malcolm. “The Science of Shopping.” Signs of Life in the USA: Reading on Popular Culture for Writers, 6th Edition. Sonia Maasik and Jack Solomon. USA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008. (93-100). Print. Marion, Gilles. Marketing Ideology and Criticism: Legitimacy and Legitimization. www.sagepublications.com., Volume 6(2): 245-260. Marketing Theory, 2006. Web. July 17, 2012. < http://gib.ipam.pt/webdisciplinas/documentos/20061009212836.pdf>. Norton, Anne. “The Signs of Shopping.” Signs of Life in the USA: Reading on Popular Culture for Writers, 6th Edition. Sonia Maasik and Jack Solomon. USA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008. (101-106). Print. Schlosser, Eric. Kid Kustomers. n.d. Web. July 16, 2012. < https://docs.google.com/leaf?id= 1LpHV1B4YbRzGijHz-n6ernIfZteRIPxNDyPkOnYdwaQ&sort=name&layout= list&pid=0BxO7MLwhDXi7MWZjZTEzY2MtZDI2Ni00MGQ0LWFjNDAtYTYwMmJlNz VkOTIz&cindex=6>. Stallworth, Cheryl. Consumer Behavior and Marketing Strategy. n.d. Web. July 17, 2012 . Twitchell, James B. “What We Are to Advertisers.” Signs of Life in the USA: Reading on Popular Culture for Writers, 6th Edition. Sonia Maasik and Jack Solomon. USA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008. (192-201). Print. Vassilikopoulou, Aikaterini, George Siomkos and Chryssoula Rouvaki. Ethical and Unethical Dimensions of Marketing. Management Review: An International Journal, Volume 3, number 2, 2008. Web. July 17, 2012. . Read More