Article - Marketing is Evil!

READ: 1 minute

AUTHOR: Robert Craven

Rand Fishkin’s recent blog tackles the ‘Marketing is Evil’ conspirators head-on. I am afraid this may become an article with a word count just for the phrase: ‘it depends’.

This whole debate reminds me of my daughter’s phrase: “Marketing is getting people to buy sh*t they don’t really want”. Well, it does encourage you to buy stuff but is it stuff you don’t really want? Hmmm, I need to think about that.

Marketers are not greatly adored

The 2020 Gallup poll, Honesty/ethics in Professions confirms that we are not greatly loved. Or respected. Or revered.

Why do so many people think it is evil?

By definition, marketing and advertising are designed to influence or manipulate. That is its purpose. Bad marketing is bad. It is naff. Pants. Just shocking. And some bad marketing is bad (in the old-fashioned sense of not good). It is unethical or politically wrong. It encourages people to buy addictive or unhealthy products or buy into undesirable lifestyles. And you can feel how loaded each of these statements is.

Possibly it is evil. Or it may have an evil or corrupting intent.

So, could marketing be evil?

The answer, I am afraid is that hackneyed phrase: ‘it depends’! Marketing isn't good or evil. It is simply what we make of it. As producers and as consumers.

Have I ever bought something I didn’t want or need? Yes.

Have I ever been deliberately misled? Yes.

Are all marketers liars? Kind of…

So what?

Rand concludes “Don’t try to solve this one. Just be OK with the popular perception that marketing sucks”.

Why does he say that?

First, marketing is “more in demand, higher-paying, and more crucial than it’s ever been”.

Second, the people who need marketing “aren’t shying away from it because of these perceptions”. 

The best part: thousands of other companies need your help. There’s no shortage of demand for great marketing.