Is marketing evil?
Following up on a rather good comments thread over on Boris’ site, here’s an interesting tidbit from a book review on YouthToday.org (I read ‘em all, folks:)
Elitist critics of American culture want us to believe that marketing is inherently evil and manipulative, that we are dumb animals, easily herded to buy things we don’t want or need. I’ve never believed that. Companies that can’t convince consumers that their products or services will bring them to a better place will fail. Those that lie or appear manipulative will be exposed and rejected. The problem is not marketing itself, but the fact that people often turn to things to meet psychological and even spiritual needs.
As I’ve said before, marketing is a tool for research and development, not inherently evil or dangerous in itself. Advertising, too. We hate advertising because it is done so badly, so ineffectively, and usually full of false promises. Paradoxically, advertising is most effective and direct when it just tells the truth — like thetruth.com’s highly-effective anti-tobacco campaign.
I’m of the view that adults have become inured to advertising; they certainly don’t pay attention to blinking banner ads on the Web, and they tune out flashy, expensive TV spots. No-one really pays attention to ads (as they are currently done) anymore except young children.
While we may be moving inexorably back to a local, agrarian, authentic culture (when the fossil fuels run out) — albeit with Internet access and cell phones — there will always be Large Organizations who have to communicate with the public, and tailor services and products to meet their needs. Marketing — as in, research, observation, hypothesis, testing, development — helps narrow the gap and if properly done, reduces waste.
It is in the execution of marketing and advertising that things have to change. I see things like The Cluetrain Manifesto to be a harbinger of how things will be — more interactive, more personal, more blog-like, one-on-one, no cold bland corporate voice, no ‘us and them’, just Sally your next-door neighbor, who works down at the bank answering your questions in person or online. Of course there will be people who try to appropriate this authentic voice or fake it, and they deserve to fail miserably. But instead of complaining about it, why don’t we get together and build it?
September 16, 2004 9:07 AM
Comments
Karl, I think you’re misunderstanding my position. I’m actually quite, quite far to the left on social issues, and a realist on economic-political issues.
What I am criticizing perhaps is not the idea that marketing can be used to manipulate people against their own natural best interests, but instead a disappointingly predictable kneejerk reaction based on, I hate to say it, intellectual laziness.
I mean, it’s all too easy to read Naomi Klein and a few issues of Adbusters and go around pointing fingers at Nike and ‘cool hunters.’
But how come people don’t protest airlines for causing mass migrations of people that spread diseases like SARS? Why don’t Western students picket Monsanto, Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland for destroying agricultural diversity in the Third World? Why don’t people protest at SUV dealerships and new suburban subdivisions when they know that sprawl causes debt, global warming, and the loss of precious resources like arable land and wild habitat? Why don’t they protest when Nestle buys up the rights to all our glaciers (and if they haven’t already, you know they are trying?)
My point is the power structure is doing what it always does - distracting the attention from where the really important stuff is. Sweatshops are cruel and unfair and should be regulated, but to some people on the other side of the world, there are much, much worse alternatives.
By comparison, marketing of consumer products is relatively benign, even helpful if we consider things like “individuality” to be a social good — if we “hate Starbucks,” then that helps us define who we are through what we are not, at least partially. At least Starbucks is honestly a chain, rather than those “Insert Name Here and Firkin” faux-English-pubs-in-office-buildings that clutter the Toronto landscape, pretending to be local and authentic when they aren’t.
There are some good articles on the subject such as Do Consumers Have More Power over Brands than Governments? at brandchannel.com, and Yes Logo by Reason co-editor Julian Sanchez. (He works for the Cato Institute, but I won’t hold that against him; I don’t agree with him that unregulated sweatshop labour is a good thing, but his premise that brands actually give consumers the power in the equation is essentially correct. A brand means it is the corporation that stands to lose its standing, not the consumer, if consumers decide that unethical practices are undesirable. It’s just that for some reason we fail to realize we have this power, and can use it at any time. Or we just like cheap crap and choose to conveniently ignore reality.
To the subject of Boris’ post, when someone makes a blanket statement that ‘marketing is evil,’ I have to respond to that. I work in marketing, I am not evil, and my work (to the best of my knowledge) is not evil or unethical. I would prefer it if Boris had said “Marketing, used for manipulative purposes, is evil.” It’s like saying all lawyers are scum when there are plenty of lawyers that work really hard cases in Youth Protection, or in legal aid. You can’t generalize like that: it’s dishonest, even if it is briefly satisfying.
wrote aj on September 16, 2004 10:58 PM
But wouldn’t you say that ‘generally’ marketing tends to be manipulative?
And if i understand correctly, you predict that ‘marketing’ will move to something more personalized—but wouldn’t that in a sense create a microworld of humans being used by corporations to pose as ADS to replace the giant billboards which turned out to not work so well? Wouldn’t these same manipulative practices that I assume a lot of large organizations employ simply be transfered on to an actual human being luring you into consumerism?
I’m just trying to discern in what you wrote what exactly needs to be done to repell the idea that marketing is inherently evil—though I do understand that becoming aware of our power of decision is one of the most important points.
wrote Alex on September 17, 2004 5:40 PM
Alex,
Actually, no, I wouldn’t say marketing tends to be manipulative. (And to date in this little brouhaha, no one has been able to prove the opposite, that it *is* manipulative, at all.)
Marketing, by and large, is really about statistics, research and focus groups. “Well, we were going to release product X and the focus groups say that they like it, but they don’t need features A and B and they would prefer that we added C and D, as well.”
There is no rhetoric or imagery in marketing. There are no suggestive poses or double entendres. There are no aspersions cast on one’s manhood / womanhood. Just charts and stats.
Quite frankly, you can’t manipulate anything in marketing, because the whole point of it is to provide a report and recommendations as to how best to communicate to the intended audience.
When research is done well, and the product has been refined by the feedback from the market research, then there is no need to manipulate anyone. As I’ve said before, the slightest hint of manipulation tends to turn the intended audience off, anyway.
So what is advertising doing these days, then? Well, either it is about keeping the brand visible, or it is in reaction to an attack from a competing brand, or it is purely informative “new product available now,” or it is to stimulate interest in a flagging product line.
For example: when was the last time you saw an Irish Spring TV commercial?
Probably a few years ago, right?
They maybe run an ad every few years or so, probably to convince young men to try the product when they move away for college or a job, hoping they will become loyal customers. If there are enough loyal customers, there’s no need to advertise at all per se, just offer coupons and rebates from time to time.
That’s where the bulk of consumer packaged goods marketing happens, anyway — store coupons, flyers, rebates, and promotions. There, the only motivator is price or the idea of “getting something extra.”
The only potentially manipulative aspect of that are mail-in rebates, because companies know that 80% of people forget about them, so it usually represents extra sales without having to give back x amount of rebate money.
What has thrown the media world for a loop are trusted online sites and user reviews. Sites like Epinions or Amazon can undo millions’ worth of advertising if 3 people say it sucks. Blogs like Gizmodo, Slashdot, Funfurde, etc. push RSS feeds to people all day long, pre-qualified audiences who genuinely want to see information about product category X — but on their terms, not spam in their inbox.
More locally, when someone in your circle of friends or even blogfriends recommends something, often with a personal review, doesn’t that make you more interested than if you saw a dumb blinking banner ad?
So the future of advertising is really PR…
But as I said, without cheap energy, the idea of “mass markets” vanishes like the ozone layer. Poof!
No cheap energy = no mass manufacturing - no factories - no trucks - no roads - no supermarkets - no malls - no electricity, in some places - no TV, no radio, no daily newspaper. No marketing or advertising. Enjoy it while you got it, folks.
wrote aj on September 17, 2004 7:32 PM
I guess the dichotomy is bigger in the discussion that I thought in the discussion. Maybe we just simply don’t want the same (human/economic/etc) world.
wrote Karl on September 16, 2004 5:27 PM