Fear Based Marketing Tactics
Introduction
Fear is in the very nature of human beings and it is very well understood by all these big brands and companies who want to earn huge profits just by playing with our emotions, then Developing and tweaking their products just at the right-time and with the right message on top of it (Lindstrom, 2011). Some of the pharmaceutical companies induce fear from diseases which we never knew even existed, not only that, relatively simple viruses and conditions can be exaggerated to sell their products, which could have been rectified using natural care and good habits, like good hygiene and healthy eating habits, but they want to sell products for every condition we can imagine (Lindstrom, 2011).
Socially Responsible
Although fear appeal is common at almost every part of the industry, in particularly the healthcare industry is driven by that more lucratively, how much you will be affected by the tactic is somewhat dependent on your cultural and racial background as well (Terblanche & Terblanche, 2011). Although fear appeal is much more effective tool for marketers, but sometimes it can be put into good use, for instance by using the appropriate fear appeal for targeted audience, it shows promising signs of reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS infections in some parts of the world (Terblanche & Terblanche, 2011).
Scare the Elderly without Exception
One similar research even encouraged the use of fear appeal on the elderly American population from baby boomers generation; they suggest that if the advertisement is carefully crafted then despite the ethical issues of scaring grandpa, it is beneficial and quite energizing for grandpa and granny (Benet, Pitts, & LaTour, 1993). It further suggests that it’s a win-win situation both for marketers and elderly people, the study concluded that these elderly people are not so much different than their younger counter parts in coping up with the fear, then buying their products (Benet, Pitts, & LaTour, 1993). Although they do realize that it can be potentially traumatic and