Exclusive or Exclusion? An Examination of Strategic Discrimination in Marketing

Marketing managers must strategically decide which markets they will serve and which ones they will not serve. This means marketers must strategically discriminate among markets and market segments; this is the logic that underlies segmentation, targeting and positioning. Although such strategic use of discrimination is considered acceptable in marketing, it can also sometimes lead to consumer backlash and criticism. When is strategic discrimination acceptable and when is it deemed unacceptable? Using six domains of marketing practice, this paper seeks to examine the fuzzy boundary of acceptable strategic discrimination-often labelled as 'exclusive'- and unacceptable strategic discrimination-often labelled as 'exclusion'- as well as offer suggestions to marketing managers and policy makers to navigate it.