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One type of brand promotion that attracts the attention of regulators, critics,

ID: 373558 • Letter: O

Question

One type of brand promotion that attracts the attention of regulators, critics, and consumer advocates is messages directed to children. Why is it the focus of so much attention?

In today’s fast moving world, children are viewed as the best bet for the marketing of food and beverage industries. This is because children have high influence on their parents, spending power and they would be future adult consumers. The children are targeted from toddlers because some companies target them for building their brand and influence their behavior in purchasing the food products. However, such food marketed to the children is high in calories and sugar. They are also inconsistent with the national dietary recommendations. Due to this inconsistency, the children become obese and face lot of health issues. Children are the future of any country. When the health is affected, it affects the parents, family and the society. Hence, marketing or promoting brands to the children is highly sensitive. This is the reason why regulators, critics, and consumer advocates immediately take action on incorrect advertisements or if they feel it is harmful on the consumption of the food and beverage products.

What are the pros and cons of database marketing, and what can consumers do to protect themselves and their privacy from unwanted or intrusive brand promotion campaigns?

Database marketing is the process of using the customer database for building customer relationships. The customers are contacted and the transaction pertaining to the database to build the customer relationship is called database marketing. The database are built and maintained with confidentiality.

Pros of database marketing:

Cons of database marketing

Customers who feel that their privacy is intruded would block the marketing messages or alerts that were sent to them electronically (for example, block emails and Facebook advertisements). In other cases, they can unsubscribe from receiving marketing notifications. The other measure is to reach out to the consumer court if the consumer feels that his privacy is hindered.

Do you think that industry self-regulation can be effective or is government regulation the only really effective way to control promotional efforts?

Personally speaking, government regulations are the only effective way to control the promotional efforts. This is because the industry self-regulations try to support the firms marketing the products irrespective of the harmful effects of the product. Whereas a government regulation takes into consideration the well-being of the citizens and the interest of the consumers. Hence, the government takes a fair action or provides regulations in protecting the customers from misleading promotional activities.

Explanation / Answer

1. One type of brand promotion that attracts the attention of regulators, critics, and consumer advocates is messages directed to children. Why is it the focus of so much attention?

2. What are the pros and cons of database marketing, and what can consumers do to protect themselves and their privacy from unwanted or intrusive brand promotion campaigns?

3. Do you think that industry self-regulation can be effective or is government regulation the only really effective way to control promotional efforts?