Sensitive Groups and Social Issues

Sensitive Groups and Social Issues

Many factors have contributed to the heightened awareness of sensitive groups and social issues where marketing is concerned. The article Sensitive Groups and Social Issues has brought to light the causes, pitfalls, pro-active strategies, and benefits of addressing these social issues. Due to the fact that consumer markets and values are constantly changing, it is important to address these issues head on. A few of the key issues discussed in the article that relate to the text readings are the marketing concept, social responsibility, and changing demographics. Addressing such issues will not only satisfy the sensitive and social groups involved, but open new and potentially profitable opportunities for companies that do so.

One of the main points that I found useful in the article was how marketing to sensitive and social groups paralleled that of the marketing concept. Successful companies have to fill the needs and wants of their consumers. Sensitive and social groups are part of every companies market. Each company's products and services should be customized to that of their customers. This is called mass customization. How a company defines its social responsibility is also part of the marketing concept. If a company does not care to be viewed as socially responsible, then they will not care how they market products to those groups and the company will suffer.

Relationship marketing is a part of the marketing concept and strongly applies to this article. A company wants to build trust with its customers in order to build customer loyalty and a long-term bond. This gives the customer a value-added feature of doing business with a particular company. In marketing orientated companies, the customer's needs have to be targeted and different social classes or issues need to be taken into account. If a company does not take different sensitive and social groups into account when marketing, then they will not