Bratz Dolls – Ethical or not
Introduction
Sex appeal as a marketing strategy during the last few years has become a very vital way to have marketers launched new products into market, such as the Uniliver’s Lynx, Calvin Klein and Gucci. All of these ads that include the graphic sex images made the ads to become controversial, extreme and perverse. However, these ads in turn are used everywhere in family print media, digital media to out-of-home ads in our daily life. As a doll brand, Bratz is seen as being overly sexualized and a bad role model for little girls, which is full of inappropriate dressings. In this report, the main reasons why Brats Dolls cause offense and the relative recommendations will be stated and explained.
Reasons why Bratz Dolls cause offense
Bratz was a big success and launched into doll market together with different types of media (Mail online, 2006), such as movies, TV ads, social media and animations that were featured by Bratz characters (Keys, 2007). Its target consumers are those who are ages from 7 and 11 years old girls, but the girls as young as 4 years old may also influenced by association with the target consumers (American Psychological Association, 2008). Thus, due to the young age of the target consumers, media used and how the marketers attract young consumers will be carefully considered. The following five reasons are why we thinking Bratz Dolls cause offense.
Sex appeal used for children
Sex appeal as a marketing strategy exists in the dolls’ appearance and its advertisements in the marketing campaign. From different media Bratz used in the marketing campaign, we found out Bratz Dolls deliberately used images and words of sex to attract children’s attention. According to the research conducted by University of New Mexico in 2011, the sex appeal used in different media that targets to 7-11 years old children possibly lead to sexism and other social concerns. As with this result of the research, we believe sex appeal should not be used in the marketing campaign which particularly focuses on the young children.
Can be against social ethics and morality
The advertisements could be against the basic morality and business ethics (Lamb C W, Hair J F, McDaniel C & Gardiner M, 2013, p. 25). In the global market, Internet could spread advertisements all over the world. All the decisions, such as which media should be used, which advertising strategy is appropriate and what content of the advertisement should be included, made by the marketers have to give consideration to the target audiences’ family’s life cycle, education background and religious background and society’s acceptance norms. In our case, most parents think it not ethical or moral for Bratz to advertise a doll by the scenes of wild party, self-orientation and bikini girls. Further, this group of parents does not want their children grow up with these ‘tarty’ dolls, either.
Lack in corporate social ethical responsibility
Lacking in corporate social ethical responsibility is also an important factor where we think Bratz Dolls are un-ethical. Since the major products of the company are for children, the company must be very sensitive to social reactions and concerns about the children’s psychological and physical health. Meanwhile, different cultural belief and expectations about a corporation could cause ethical conflict between consumers and the company, therefore, ruin the brand.
Twisting body image amongst children
The sexually explicit marketing could twist the body image among consumers (Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative, 2011), especially for the Brats’ target consumers, the 4-11 years old children, which could lead to an obsession over the body both for boys and girls. More specifically, sexual harassment could be caused when this group of young consumers grows up. Using sex appeal in a marketing campaign could lead to social ills and therefore, the opposite affect of the marketing objectives will occur.
Negative influence on purchasing decision makers
When consumers make purchasing decisions, the decisions generally will be made in our socialization process in our case (Lamb C W, Hair J F, McDaniel C & Gardiner M 2013, p.41). In a family, which is a socialization process, when children who indicate their desire to possess a doll, their parents would make the final decision whether to buy the dolls or not. As the Bratz Dolls use sex appeal as their marketing strategies to attract target audiences, the children’s parents would be easily offended by the exaggerated advertisements in some specific cultural groups such as the more conservative Asian cultural families. As a result, the sales which is one of the marketing objective would be decreased.
Managerial recommendations
According to our explanations why Bratz Dolls cause offense to society, we come with three managerial recommendations to this brand.
Changing market strategy
As we can see, although using sex appeal could to some extend enhance brand awareness, build up high REACH and opportunity to see and recall the core message of the advertisements, this strategy which is used to attract the 7-11 year old children is inappropriate, from which a failure on enhancing brand equity will exist and could be against the basic moral and business ethics. In the short run, the brand could increase its sales by using sex appeal, but in the long run, the brand needs to develop a brand identity which could be obtained only by positive marketing and marketing communication programs. That is to say, to develop a strong and unique brand image in the consumers’ mind in the long run instead of being sexually orientated for the little children in the short run to increase its sales would be more important.
Enhancing ethical responsibility
Enhancing the commitment to ethical responsibility will be a good way for Bratz to re-build its reputation amongst the target audience. Due to the target audience is the 7-11 years old children, Bratz Dolls and business behaviors have created a big amount of ethical issues. Just as we mentioned before, the company has to be sensitive and quick enough to the reaction from the public to its products and advertisements. The children’s psychological health and their rights to have a positive environment to grow will be given a high priority. Further, the new globalization makes the products and advertisements spread to the other countries that have different culture in an incredible speed, company needs to put different legal and religious systems into its considerations (Ferrell O C & Fraedrich J 2009, p.361).
Paying more attention on different cultures
This recommendation includes two parts, which are producing and selling products to different countries in terms of different cultures and make Bratz Doll as a symbol. Arising from the boom in international marketing, we believe one brand cannot just simply use the same products as they provide to the domestic market because of the dressing style and cultural issue. Also, the marketing campaign could be more specific to the target culture because of the offense could be caused to some demographic groups. What is more, the doll itself should be advertised as a symbol instead of being advertised as a character with incorrect personality and wrong message to the young girls. Aside from the doll, company could provide different accessories such as the suits for different occasions, which could be professional, sports as well as other social activities.
Conclusion:
This company, MGA during the last decade faced serious difficulties and challenges. Some researchers recommended that what the company needs to do is to urgently re-build the reputation. Although it has admits its low commitment to its corporate ethical responsibility, it might be a little too late to re-connect to its consumers since the uncertainty of the US economy’s future. Reputations are hard won and easily lost (Ferrell O C & Fraedrich J 2009, p.350), it is not easy to re-build once it is lost. Therefore, we think the reputation building should be accomplished throughout from the beginning of brand launching of any brand.
Reference
2006, Over-sexed and over here: The 'tarty' Bratz Dolls, Mail online,<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-411266/Over-sexed-The-tarty-Bratz-Doll.html#ixzz30R5qfy6J>, viewed 27 April 2014.
2010, Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls, American Psychological Association, <http://www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/girls/report-full.pdf>, viewed 5 April 2014.
Ferrell O C & Fraedrich J 2009, Business Ethics 2009 Update: Ethical Decision Making and Cases, Cengage Learning, Melbourne, Australia.
Keys L 2007, Bratz: they’re cool, hot and controversial. Jewish Journal, <http://www.jewishjournal.com/education/article/bratz_theyre_cool_hot_and_controversial_20071102>, viewed 22 April 2014.
Lamb C W, Hair J F, McDaniel C & Gardiner M 2013, MKTG2, 2nd edn, Cengage Learning, Melbourne, Australia.
Speck J, Gutierrez A & Sawayda J 2011, Marketing Campaigns use Sex Appeal to sell Products, Daniels fund Ethics Initiatives, University of New Mexico, <http://danielsethics.mgt.unm.edu>, viewed 21 April 2014.
Note: This assignment is submitted by BaoChen Chen (Jack Chen) to University of Adelaide. If you want to use any idea from this report, please cite it correctly. © 2014 - 2018 Baochen Chen (Jack Chen) All Rights Reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment