![[tmbchr]™](/journal/popocculture-blog-logo.jpg){kind=logo}
Are Marketers Evil People?
This is a great comment from a reader named “Ant” in a previous post. It’s a viewpoint that I think i woefully under-explored within counter-culture discussions against marketing and consumerism.
I find it entirely fascinating and confusing when an issue is brought up from multiple conflicting perspectives. For example, from a marketer’s perspective, all of this makes sense. `Go to school, learn how a business works best, learn when to cut prices and allow for inflation, etc… Marketers aren’t evil people, they’re just doing their job the way that it works the best.
Sometimes even I forget that the people running corporations are indeed real people with a lot of the same motivations as consumers. Hmm. I dunno, that’s where I get stuck. Where does the line between “real people running a business” and “creepy evil overlord corporation” get drawn? Why do we separate ourselves so much from the corporations we complain about? If we “play the game” and get to know the people involved in the corporation, would we still think it’s a dangerous individuality-killer?
For anyone who believes that marketing is evil or wrong or manipulative, I would challenge you to delineate *when* marketing becomes those things. When does it stop being somebody taking pride in their craft and doing their job to the fullest of their abilities, and when does it become an awful soul-crushing beast from hell? What exactly is it about marketers that’s so insidious? If they aren’t standing there with guns to our heads forcing us to do things, then what’s so awful and manipulative about them? I would anticipate that one response to that would be that it becomes bad when it distorts the truth and when it plays on or causes peoples’ insecurities. My next follow-up question to that is: where does ultimately responsibility for the truth lie - within other people’s speech, or within our own powers of discernment?
March 20th, 2006 at 12:57 am
I expected this to come up, I actually wondered why I was so edgy when I commented earlier considering I don’t fear marketing at all, really.
Of course I’m in charge here. Nobody makes me buy anything, ever.
With regards to the “just doing their jobs,” I don’t know if I believe marketing is so necessary, however, that you need million-dollar firms to do it. Focus on your product and do it best. Otherwise stop making crap. I also don’t see a need to specialize in it; I find it extremely frustrating that so many people get BAs in Marketing. For christ’s sake, get an education–although most BAs are probably just as worthless, so that’s not very substanstive. I find this annoying, but I attribute it more to a phoney education system than the ad world.
Is preying on insecurity evil? Yes and no. Generating insecurities is definitiely evil, and there are ways to do it: distort-and-reframes, increasing dissonance, etc. At the same time, see paragraph two here. Selling a “lifestyle” is not evil, it’s annoying: Axe Deodarant. I can handle annoying.
Is distorting the truth evil? Well, that depends. How are you distorting it? It can only so much be a customer’s responsibility to educate himself. And no one is going to admit there’s glass in their peanut butter.
Exercise: go into a dietary supplement store. See if you get hard-sold after expressing a nebulous interest. Chances are, you got sold crap, and chances are, most of the stuff in the store is crap. If you’re not highly familiar with doses, substances, herbs, and studies regarding them, you’re in trouble. Compound this with the fact that there’s a kitchen sink approach by marketing to use the brand as a talisman to overwhelm ineffecutality. It essentially reduces the design from a means of public communication to a form of low signal-to-noise ratio misinformation, which doesn’t do anybody any good. I worked in one of these places for a while and was always at pains to get customers to educate themselves, and to sell the good, effectual products. Too bad. Marketing wanted us to sell all the products, including the snake oil. I had two choices: lie by omission or outright, or get reprimanded repeatedly for not bringing in enough. I quit after two months, because I don’t believe in filling the public space with bullshit in order to move product. I felt a cleaner conscious selling drug test masking drinks than fake diet pills that cause stomach cancer.
WIth regards to Marketers “being people too,” see my comment about ” ‘pork curtain curry’.” Do you talk like that? Or hire prostitutes on a nightly basis? I’m around a number of very, very evil people every day. People more evil than marketers. Many of them have venereal disease and will be in the cardiac unit in less than twenty years. You can outrun the lies on money for a long time, but it’ll get to you. They are by-and-large very different from the middle class.
March 20th, 2006 at 1:11 am
Actually, the fancy-graphic quick-cut videos, and the manufactured insecurities are the least of our problems. The real problem is the behind-the-scenes alteration of our belief structures through PR, through manipulation of news, and through “education”. That’s where the real sneaky stuff occurs. If you can decide the boundaries of acceptable discourse, than you can also decide the boundaries of acceptable thought.
I just read two interesting books that were mostly rants but still informative: Laura Penny’s Your call is important to us: the truth about bullshit and Derrick Jensen’s Walking on Water. The former touches on the evils of PR (e.g. “issues management”) and the latter touches on the evils of our education system. Worthy of reading, both.
By the way, maybe I’m totally dense and missing something, but what in the hell is “pork curtain curry”?
March 20th, 2006 at 1:38 am
First of all, thank you, Tim! I appreciate the continued discussion! Here comes a nice stream-of-consciousness response:
This might sound crazy, but ever since I was little (elementary school) I’ve been an active consumer. When a product is crap, or I have a problem with it, I write or call the companies and ask for a refund and/or let them know what my experience was. If I REALLY appreciate a product, I write or call the companies and let them know. (Emailing is mostly pointless and ineffective. PR people are almost impossible to contact that way.)
Of course, I don’t do that with everything– but where it matters, I make a little effort. Feedback is essential for a marketing company to do their jobs correctly. Isolation (in any form) leads to an antisocial bias against everything else that’s not helping us to further our self-imposed causes. We become, as I’ve heard some neoconservatives recently state, “the lunatic fringe.” We sit around and smoke pot and complain about how “the man” is keeping us down, and how corporations are out to get us… so we put ourselves into these little self-imposed bubbles and never see how great the world really is. Of course, this is just my opinion. And I’m not a Neoconservative. But maybe I’m an optimist who believes that pessimism is an easy way out of almost everything worthwhile.
Also, maybe I’m lucky enough to not fall for some of the marketing campaigns I find questionable… Such as the whole prescription-for-everything commercials… and television in general. Don’t tell me Everybody Love Raymond is funny! Adding a laugh track to anything doesn’t render it entertaining, let alone funny.
I definitely have my issues with consumerism, but most of it has to do with the fact that society has become oversaturated with… everything. It makes my probable-A.D.D. go off the charts.
And channel, I don’t agree with you that getting a BA in marketing is phoney education… It may not be something you learn from lots of books, but it’s definitely a skill that is necessary to most businesses. …but I’m just going to move on from that.
As for your question, Tim, (the ultimate responsibility for the truth): I’m almost stumped there, but here goes…
I think that anyone in any industry needs to move towards an ideal of honesty and truth… and I do think times are changing a bit in the marketing sector due to our somewhat-obsession with Postmodernism. Maybe I mean to say “We like to talk about what we’re doing as we’re doing it, while analyzing multiple perspectives. For example, telling people that your product is pretty corny, but it’s fun to use it because it’s cool to be corny and be comfortable with that.”
Uhhh… and I think the responsibility SHOULD fall into the hands of the people who are marketing, but that’s just not always the only factor, and we can’t really see deep inside the innerworkings and know what really contributed to a campaign. But what I think we DO need to be more, as a society of consumers, IS more lucid. I know people don’t seem to have any time anymore, but people really need to do their research and understand things before they dive in. If you want truth, look for it. Otherwise, you’ll probably do alright, but only averagely so.
I just typed all of this and now I’m left wondering if I said anything at all. haha. Not as crisp as my last one, so I guess that means it’s time for bed.
March 20th, 2006 at 9:03 am
How could I judge someone else’s career choice? They may have a sick mother to provide for.
My conscience would not allow me to do that kind of work, though. Marketing is literally psychic warfare, whether the marketers themselves are the foot-soldiers or the generals.
In my own line of work, I could have perhaps made a lot more money than I have, but I made the choices I thought were moral, whether anyone else understood or not.
Don’t worry!
March 20th, 2006 at 11:18 am
(Wow, some glaring typos on my part from that late-nighter.)
But I did want to address this:
So I guess you’re saying that marketers ARE indeed evil. But I think we’re still avoiding the question at hand, regardless if I agree with that assertion. The real question now is: At what point does “promotion” become “psychic warfare”? (as you call it) And how is in-your-face marketing at all “psychic”?
As for my stance on the matter– If marketing is an “evil,” then it must be a necessary one if you ever plan on being in any sort of business.
March 20th, 2006 at 11:29 am
Note: I didn’t mean to post that second question about in-your-face marketing being pyschic. So, I’d rather we skip over it because it sounds to me like one of those questions that is going to get a frustrated “omg, how is it not?” response. I do understand the psychological aspects of marketing… and I do think that if a campaign is preying on people (perhaps inadvertently), then there needs to be better feedback to these companies from people like us who might feel that way.
March 20th, 2006 at 11:30 am
(holy crap, I can’t type today.)
March 20th, 2006 at 1:12 pm
Predatory capitalism created a complex industrial system and an advanced technology; it permitted a considerable extension of democratic practice and fostered certain liberal values, but within limits that are now being pressed and must be overcome.
The only justification for repressive institutions is material and cultural deficit. But such institutions, at certain stages of history, perpetuate and produce such a deficit, and even threaten human survival.
Consumerism is a spiritual disease that marketers exploit.
March 20th, 2006 at 1:46 pm
What about radical consumerism?
http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2005/05/29/radical-consumerism/
March 20th, 2006 at 1:58 pm
This is where I agree. Consumerism is greatly simplified to a spectrum of ‘like’ things that seem like broad options. A two party system for almost every product group. And then you add an oversaturation of ‘like’ options to the equation, and it becomes overwhelming. Just walk into a grocery store and tell me that you know exactly what type of cereal to buy if you’ve never bought cereal before.
But I still feel like we’re avoiding the question of boundaries here. Where is the boundary between “helpful, honest marketing entrepreneur” and “Capitalist foot-soldier/general.” Is it just when marketing is no longer honest? Or is it when marketing becomes its own source of identity?
March 20th, 2006 at 2:14 pm
how about turning the question on its head? is it possible for a giant corporation to be *good*?
i work in the labor industry, so this question comes up a lot. there are companies out there that definitely do fit the bill of being patently evil, and it’s usually because they make no distinction between individual humans (be they employee or customer) and simple objects. i’m not even talking about wal-mart or any of the obvious ones, i’m talking about local newspapers, hotel chains, etc. in the interest of cutting corners, they really do treat people like garbage, look for ways to pay people less or to trick customers into paying more, all very consciously. they are aware that they’re acting unethically, but do it regardless because they can, and because they’ve literally lost the ability to see strangers as humans, instead considering them about as valuable as boxes in a warehouse.
then on the other hand you have companies like costco, which are really awesome to their employees and their customers. of course, they still drive little mom n’ pops out of business and build massive structures and such, but overall they’re kind of ‘good,’ ’cause they offer excellent benefits and see their employees as actual people.
of course, i’m also involved in a situation at work (can’t go too far into detail) where an independent, family-owned small business treats their employees like shit whereas a competing company, owned by a giant multinational corporation, is really cool to its employees. but, the indy, family-owned business gets all the public sympathy because they’re “local” and “independent.”
March 20th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
Thank you, JP, good thinking.
So, I think what we may have come to is… Marketing becomes evil when it is no longer personal. So maybe that’s the boundary. That decision in a marketing plan that suddenly says “the demographic we need to sell to” instead of “the demographic that actually could benefit from us.” When people become assets, it’s not necessarily a pretty result. Of course, I still think “evil” is a strong word, but I’ll definitely give it “questionable morals.”
I think the threat of depersonalization is a common thread through any campaign or motive, really.
March 20th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
Depersonalization & individuality are two other points I want to hammer some more in the next few posts, but it’ll have to wait till later… it ties together some threads about VR, customer data tracking and v for vendetta
June 17th, 2006 at 5:51 pm
[…] In any event though, the real message that I took away from this video is one that I agree with: that advertising is manipulative (if not always evil). It plays on people’s insecurities, and it attempts to hurl useless and sometimes dangerous products and services into the gaps we all have in our lives as humans. To seek spiritual salvation through consumerist avenues only opens you up more and more to this system of deprivation and domination. So, for that reason, I find Tsarion’s efforts to pull people out of this negative spiral both noble and worthwhile. […]