“Marketing means manipulating customers into purchasing something they don’t need.” Do You Agree?

Marketing Means Manipulating Customers into Purchasing Something they don’t need.” Do You Agree?
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Manipulation in Marketing
It's usually the aim of every business to make more sales and increase their profit. When a company is set, efforts are made to push the products by attracting more customers through marketing (Twin, 2020). Marketing, therefore, involves various undertakings by a company to enhance the sales of their goods and services. The main intention of marketing is to attract the intentions of the most viable clients who may become customers in the future. According to Brenner (2020), marketing involves various company actions to attract customers and maintain a relationship with them. Activities like promoting, making a delivery, and sales to customers or other businesses act as a form of appeal to them, making them frequent customers. When developing a product or a business, the target is focused on a specific audience that can be achieved by aspects like celebrity endorsement, overall media exposure, using catchy phrases and slogans, among other marketing techniques hence maintaining them(Lake, 2020). Marketing is aimed at getting customers to purchase a product and retaining them so that they may come back in the future. Therefore, networking with past clients makes them stay interested in case the product or service served their purpose hence making them come back for more. Presumably, the essential marketing level matches the company's performance to customers who may be interested in it. Woodall, (2007) state that to get the interest of the customer, marketing mix strategy is mostly applicable. In this case, marketing focuses on product, price, place, and promotion. Marketing is, therefore, the explanation of how excellent a product or a service is and convincing people why they should buy it (AMA, 2020). The concept that marketing is a form of manipulation into making customers buy what they do not need is debatable. Some customers purchase a product because they are persuaded to while others actually needed it and hence purchased it upon being convinced that it serves their need.
Presumably, marketing can be quite intense, leading the customer to buy what they do not necessarily need. The main goal of a marketer is to get customers to buy stuff. The marketer might become over-enthusiastic in making more sales and shifting into manipulation (Rishi and Bandyopadhyay, 2018). They get involved with trickery, deceit, and mass consumerism instead of using the actual means of connecting the consumer with the product. In this case, a consumer is won over by the marketer, who says what the consumer wants to hear. Therefore, with manipulation, crappy product record-high sales are due to great marketing, while great products that are minimally marketed get few customers. According to Owyang (2020), the persuasion and manipulation of being made to believe that a product might serve a particular purpose make customers buy products that they did not initially need. However, the aspect of telling the customer what they want to hear instead of stating the actual purpose of the product creates the issue of ethics in marketing. Presumably, this mostly happens in the aspect of an unknown desire whereby a customer has no idea what they want (Meyers, 2020). In this case, a marketer works towards persuading a customer wants things that they didn’t know existed.
Modern marketing especially makes customers buy what they don’t necessarily need. A good example is the mobile phone industry. Many brands are coming up every day. Some may have upgraded features, while others are just a replica of what previously existed but with a more appealing appearance (Oldford, 2020). Marketers here are in the frontline in convincing the consumers that the new product is more magical than what they have while, on the other hand, what they already own serves their needs perfectly. The heart of modern consumerism has hence gotten out of control as people are always fulfilling an unknown desire. Notably, this habit has been perpetuated by marketers who are manipulating people into wanting Something by playing on their envy, doubt, and desire (Kotler and Keller, 2020). The consumer, therefore, ends up buying an apple that they did not even know they wanted that is equally similar to a Samsung phone they previously had. A customer may wake in the future after realizing that they were pushed into making a decision, which they later regret. Marketing, therefore, is getting someone to change their mind, which can be extremely difficult, thus making them buy what they did not need. Armstrong, Kotler, and Opresnik (2004) state that If a marketer finds themselves constantly making people change their minds, there is a possibility that the target is the wrong market and is only making sales through manipulation.
Anybody can manipulate the other into believing Something they do not believe, be it the media, government, and even marketers. Notably, that is why consumers are made to buy unnecessary products. The mind takes in a lot of information subconsciously and then filters it hence making one form beliefs and perceptions on everything. A company like Coca-Cola makes itself present everywhere through TVs, newspapers, billboards, and any other available advertisement space(Lu, Chen, Fuhrman, and Sun, 2016). Presumably, this is because they know that when it’s seen enough, people will form attachments. The stake of manipulation is specifically high today because of social media. For instance, by using Facebook, any marketer can target, retarget, and manipulate certain people. Coca-Cola will manipulate one to buy its products even with the knowledge of the health effect they may pose in the future because of their familiarity (Woodall, 2007). Politics has also made people form individual perceptions and prejudice, while media also manipulated people into believing a particular plan or campaign. Consumers cannot, therefore, escape from being manipulated into single purchases as long as marketing is happening.
Surprisingly, business is aware that manipulation is part of their marketing technique and maybe the only way to sell their products even though the customer may not use them (Linder, 2020). The trick in business is, therefore, how they handle the manipulation and make more profit. The marketer does not feel guilty about it as long as they gain their customer’s trust and make a positive impact in the future (Faisal, 2016). For instance, one may buy a book on amazon because they recommended it and end up loving it even if there was no initial interest. Additionally, Facebook may target a member with information from a particular influencer or a leader who ends up liking and following them. Therefore, businesses know that most of the sales they make through marketing is through their manipulation and not that the consumer was initially interested (Tuttle, 2020). Manipulation in marketing can be a good thing when a business knows that its product is genuine and has a massive impact on customers hence transforming their needs. According to Thompson and Malaviya (2013), customers end up buying what they do not need when the marketing technique is relevant to them; it's omnipresent and builds their trust.
Marketing is a game of tricks. Marketers know that a customer is likely to buy a product with the impression that they will get a good deal even though they are not. Offering discounts has worked as a way of marketing for many years (Langner, Hennigs, and Wiedmann, 2013). A seller places a high price on a product and pretends to be offering a particular percentage discount to grab the customer's attention. The truth is the seller would not have sold the item at the initial price since the presumed discounted price is the actual cost of the merchandise. A consumer is therefore attracted to the discounted product with the presumption of taking advantage of the offer. Pricing decoy also makes people play to buy expensive gadgets. In this case, a mobile company like Apple comes up with a product and uses it as a reference to create a good impression of another product (Astrong, 2019). The aspect of price comparison and discounts is a marketing strategy that pushes people into going for what they presume to be cheaper options. In this case, they may not require the product at the time but assume that the prices will be high when they need it. Marketing, therefore, tends to create false urgency and scarcity and counteract any second thoughts of buying a product. Therefore, customers feel that they need to purchase a product. However, they have to reconsider Marketing in some aspects tries to push on into doing Something instead of providing them the freedom to do what feels right. Most businesses that are focused on the one-time sale, especially, are not interested in long term customer relationships but instead are focused on the customer's wallet (Phillip, 2005).
On the other hand, marketing is not meant to manipulate customers into purchasing what they do not want. As much as businesses are targeting towards making a profit, most are noble enough to ensure that their products and services meet their specific needs. Therien, (2020), states that besides increasing sales, marketing plays many roles among them being communication about the virtues of the product or brand, manage the perceptions about the product and improving the product. Consumers do not, therefore, buy a product because it has been advertised but because it’s a necessity. Many products like toothpaste, kid’s products, and food are advertised every day. People do not buy them because of how often they see them on their screens and billboards, but because they need them for their survival (Jessica, 2020). Therefore, even the most essential things are advertised, and peopl...