| You probably won't agree, because it's not a very charitable thing to say about marketers, sorry. My position is that democracy works well when the will of the people gets translated into action in a way that still resembles what those people organically need. Marketing is the process of tampering with that translation such that what actually happens benefits the marketers' customers, typically at the expense of the people. Presumably there are practices and technologies that we could invest in which preserve this translation, but we haven't been investing in those. Instead we've been investing in marketing. We're building a world where you can spend money to shape public opinion, and that's a world that's toxic to democracy. Perhaps there was a time when information about available goods and services was hard to come by. Maybe you legitimately needed somebody to get the word out. But I don't think we live in that world anymore. In case you're not familliar with "the shoe event horizon": > As a society sinks into depression, the people of the society need to cheer themselves up by buying themselves gifts, often shoes. It is also linked to the fact that when you are depressed you look down at your shoes and decide they aren't good enough quality so buy more expensive replacements. As more money is spent on shoes, more shoe shops are built, and the quality of the shoes begins to diminish as the demand for different types of shoes increases. This makes people buy more shoes. > The above turns into a vicious cycle, causing other industries to decline. > Eventually the titular Shoe Event Horizon is reached, where the only type of store economically viable to build is a shoe shop. At this point, society ceases to function, and the economy collapses, sending a world spiralling into ruin. In the case of Brontitall and Frogstar World B, the population forsook shoes and evolved into birds. That's what is happening to us, except instead of shoes, it's ads. We're diminishing the legitimacy of making a good product or being a good leader, because an easier way to win is just pay to shape public opinion. What you win isn't as good as it would have been if you competed on merit, but that doesn't matter because competing on merit is hard and your opposition isn't doing it. So I'm saying that it's Marketing vs Democracy and Marketing is winning. Thus we're living in Marketing's endgame and not Democracy's endgame. |
For context, I just published a book called Insurgent Marketing. The central thesis is that the world is being shaped by propagandists, has been for a long time, and that the best (and most pragmatic) way to combat their influence is to play their game better than they do.
All businesses market themselves. Try running a business without doing anything remotely resembling marketing, and let me know how that goes. But that doesn't mean marketing (and marketers) should get a free pass for the damage many of us cause.
I think of marketing as neither positive nor negative in it itself, much like speaking or any form of communication. Some of us speak love. Some of us speak hate. Most of us spew garbage.
The problem isn't marketing, per se, but human greed. Both are as old as written history, and probably older. By blaming marketing, we excuse ourselves from taking responsibility of our role in shaping the world around us. The problem is "other people", those evil marketers. (Or politicians. Or bankers. Or the alt-right. Pick your bogeyman.)
Regarding this "Shoe Event Horizon", I hadn't heard of it before. My initial take is that as long as businesses keep getting bigger, quality will suffer. But we live in a time when it's easier (not easy, just easier) to launch a business of your own and produce shoes (or any product) of the quality you're looking for. Yes, most people will shop at Wal-Mart for the cheapest thing. Again, human greed, on behalf of both the corporation and the customers.
But thanks to technological advances, we're at a turning point where anyone with a smartphone can effectively market their goods. It's not the sole domain of corporations and governments anymore.
My hope, and my personal belief, is that more people will seize this opportunity so that we start to see an explosion of independent entrepreneurs producing products they're proud to stamp their names on.