[therealpygon]

Good or bad, I’m pretty sure showing things in the best light has always been the point of “marketing”. There is a reason ads aren’t filled with ugly people with misshaped bodies, and it isn’t because the intention is to reflect reality, so what you allude to as problematic is what a lot of businesses call a feature.

[sixothree]

I'm pretty sure I saw somewhere people can sell re-sell clothes. They can include a picture of themselves wearing the item and it replaces literally everything but the clothing with someone/someplace "prettier".

In the end the one thing that is completely honest is the portion of the picture that is the item you are re-selling. But somehow to me the entire thing feels disingenuous.

[therealpygon]

Marketing a product is often disingenuous. You didn’t actually need that shirt, or that bag of chips. That’s the definition of successful marketing in their mind.

If marketing had to be honest, an entirely different set of products would likely be the most popular. I don’t think that’s a good thing by any means, just that the problem hasn’t really changed much beyond more focused targeting, which has always been a goal of marketing anyway.

It’s hard to convince someone who isn’t interested to buy something which is why tech ads sell on tech channels and car ads sell on car channels. Now you get to star in your very own clothes ads…for yourself…targeting you…

I suspect companies drool for that prospect because you are selling it to yourself with only some nice gentle nudging. That is the grail of marketing; that you don’t even realize you are in the midst of being marketed to.