| Speaking as someone who blends marketing/design/technical work I have a few thoughts on this. First, there's pressure on a lot of marketers to sell more this month or this quarter. Second, there's an expectation to prove that an idea is good using data and to prove the idea worked using data. Third, there's very little interest in investing in the art side of the trade. When taken together, you get what we've got. What am I trying to say? I guess just that in my experience it's always been the owners and top level managers pushing for short-term, unethical, bad ux decisions and focusing on manipulating instead of serving people. And it sucks. I think a lot of us got into marketing because we're creative and technical and wanting to make businesses and products better for people, both consumers and society at large. Or maybe that's just me. Edit: the worst part of it is the demoralizing realization that the owners are often right. Most people actually do want McDonalds, like shopping at Walmart/Amazon, and enjoy Facebook. So I guess the worst part about marketing, the part nobody talks much about, is that giving the majority of people what they want usually means low quality at the cheapest price. |
Still, I look at a company like burger king, or a toy company, or Disney, or a radio station, and the entirety of them, including the product itself, is marketing. If these companies could take your money without giving you anything at all they would. The idea of marketing is supposed to be to put your product in front of it's users for you. Instead with countless examples you see companies rebuilding their entire product line as a marketing strategy. There is no product anymore, just that last mile of marketing to get your money in their hand. This is so common nowadays.