Jane Barksdale has designed a line of clothing targeted toward Hispanic Americans. The items are sold only by catalog and on the Internet. She thinks that she can increase sales by claiming in ads that the firm is owned by a Hispanic American and that all the company's employees are Hispanic Americans. She is not Hispanic American nor are most of her employees. She needs a high level of sales to pay her bank loan and remain in business.
Students will respond to the following:
* Describe the arguments for and against Jane claiming to be Hispanic American in her ads.
* Explain how the Federal Trade Commission addresses this issue, and evaluate the effectiveness of their rules or measures.
* Explain the guidelines according for small business advertising or e-commerce.
* Hypothesize about the risks Jane takes in making false claims in her ads.
* Describe how marketers can use the various demographic information provided.
* Explain why it is important for marketers to be aware of ethnic growth rates by going to the Projections link and viewing the projected growth rates for 2010.
* Go to the State Median Income link, identify the five states with the highest and lowest incomes, and determine why this would be important to marketers.