Targeting children and youth is one of the strategies companies are using to increase their sales. The children are consumers and, in the future, will have the purchasing power. Building a good relationship with them will no doubt guarantee businesses success. Aeropostale’s choice to target the young was to build a good relationship with the young and make them loyal to its products. Although the company may be having a good intention to the company and the younger consumers, I consider the move unethical.
To begin with, targeted children have no purchasing power. This implies that the parents' burden will fall as the children will persuade their parents to buy them the advertised products. According to Lapierre et al. (2017), there exists a relationship between Children’s exposure to advertisements, materialism, and conflicts between parents and their children. The Company will make the children nag to the parents, and when the parents do not meet their demands, they may end up having strained relationships. The Aeropostale company will be relying on the pester power to force adults to purchase products that are not within their budgets. Further, children are easily attracted to the products advertised on social media. They view the products as must-have. This can lead to social divisions as those whose parents do not have the economic power to purchase them the product feel inferior and frustrated. Impulsive buying will be an effect of the marketing that targets children.
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The marketing will make children capitalists and eager to use the advertised products. In turn, children will become materialistic and grow to associate the ability to purchase certain products with happiness. Those that cannot acquire the products will feel isolated from the rich who can afford them. The future society will be material-based, and the gap between the rich and the poor will be heavily felt. The society will be stratified according to the purchasing ability.
In retrospect, the Aeropostale Company should target adults because they have the purchasing power. Targeting children will put unnecessary pressure on the adults who will be forced to buy products against their budget and will. Targeting the young will make them materialistic and associate happiness with the purchasing power. Therefore, business enterprises should try as much as possible to avoid targeting children in their marketing.
References
Lapierre, M., Fleming-Milici, F., Rozandaal, E., McAlister, A. & Castonguay, J. (2017). The effect of advertising on children and adolescents. Pediatrics 140 (2), s152-s156. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2016-1758V
