Case Study: marketing in school
Read the case study, entitled "Marketing in Schools" attached. Once you finish reading the case study, answer the following questions:
* Is there an appropriate age that advertising should consider?
* Who are the stakeholders that will be affected by your decision, and how will each be affected?
* What are the benefits and drawbacks to advertising products within schools?
* What other facts would you need to make a decision, and how might your decision affect the stakeholders?
Discuss alternative marketing practices that could be ethical and help the schools to raise money.
Evaluate any assumptions that you make. The case study should be thoroughly discussed, and the written submission should
* be at least two pages in length (not including the cover and reference pages),
* include a summary of the case study, and
* answer the five questions listed above.
Remember to use APA style for your assignment.
Is there an age at which children are too young to be the targets of commercials and marketing? Is every person, regardless of age, a potential consumer? The market potential of young people is huge. According to one 2001 report, children's spending tripled in the 1990s. Children between the ages of 4 and 12 spent $2.2 billion in 1968, $4.2 billion in 1984, $17.1 billion in 1994, and more than $40 billion by 2002. Estimates are that direct buying by children is expected to exceed $51.8 billion by 2006. This makes young people an attractive target for marketers, and where better to target marketing than in schools?
Commercials in schools occur in many forms. Products are directly advertised in a variety of formats and circumstances, including on school buses and through Channel One, a for-profit media company that produces news programming shown daily in thousands of middle and high school classrooms. Indirect advertising occurs with sponsorships of school activities and supplies. Many products are sold in and by schools and many schools participate in a variety of marketing research studies. In every case, schools provide the occasion for students to learn about some commercial product.
• Should advertising be allowed in schools?
• What facts would you want to know before deciding this question?
• What alternative marketing practices are open to companies that sell products to children? If some school districts propose advertising on and in buses, which are public property paid for by tax dollars, does that raise additional issues?
• Who are the stakeholders of your decision? What is the impact of each alterna¬tive decision on each stakeholder you have identified?
• What rights and duties are involved?
• How would you decide the case? Is it mostly a matter of consequences, or are important principles involved?