The Claim That Surveillance Of Consumers By Retail Anthropologists Is Manipulative And Unethical

In today’s society, almost everything we buy; we are being manipulated by corporations into purchasing the item. If you walk into a supermarket, there are cameras everywhere you ultimately trust that it is for safety. However, that supermarket is using those cameras for other reasons you may not be aware of. In this essay, I will agree with the claim that, surveillance of consumers by retail anthropologists is manipulative and unethical. Many Americans have an entirely different understanding for being surveillance everywhere they shop. They are manipulated into thinking it's for safety. Many corporations have tactics that play with consumers emotions. Lastly, it is an invasion of privacy. Many people have no clue what corporations do

In specific, they use emotions, the countercultural idea, and the division of class to convince consumers to buy their products. Part of big company jobs are to market their product to get consumers, but they exaggerate with the way they are marketing that it is causing addictions to people. It is important for everyone to be aware of what is going on. All corporations are only looking out for themselves and are using many tactics to persuade consumers. For example, Victoria Secret only uses tall, gorgeous super skinny models. The problem is these models do crazy unsafe diets to prepare for their fashion show. Young women see this and create impossible diets and buy all their products. Not only does the show rating get women to watch, but also many men. Proving the point, where companies go through high magers to get their sale numbers, therefore not caring the way the consumers are being affected. Surprisingly, we can also see this in the locations where cigarettes are highly being advertised. They are being advertised in manly, liquor stores close to schools, and the stereotypical race. The problem is they are advertising cigarettes, which are a horrible killing habit, but have the highest marketing sales. Proving how selfish and manipulated businesses can be for their own

Many people do not want to be observed and analyzed every time they walk into a store. Many, can be a very private person, therefore watching a person can invade their privacy. It's crazy to have to be watched, just so that marketing teams can try and improve their sale numbers. There is no need to invade a person's privacy for one's benefit. For example, in the TEDxIndianapolis video Ray Burke states “ we’ve done research where we approached shoppers and asked them to wear these special pair of glasses that have this little camera and it tracks where they are looking as they walk through the store.” This can be an example, of invasion of privacy. . Also, a huge invasion of privacy for the other shoppers being videotaped and have no clue. That person may have been manipulated into thinking it’s for the consumers benefit; when in reality it’s to increase sells for the company. The marketing teams then look over the footage and re arrange the entire store.They have set up the entire store around the consumers purchasing habits. Rajeev Sharma states, “ Basically what Video Mining does is use a software along with cameras that are mounted on the ceilings of stores to track shoppers as they move around stores and create data that helps us understand how shoppers are shopping.” Important to realize, to many shoppers this may sound invasive. This is creating an