Marketing

Out of all the non-professions, marketing is among the most insidious. In league with its cousin (and probably half-sister) advertising, marketing reduces humanity into shallow demographics, systematically perverting our needs and capitalising on our anxieties. Many a marketing executive has made a career by leading open communication through the desert towards the mirage of branding. Dressed up as creativity and innovation, the superficial and malleable nature of marketing is more akin to the illusionist and the mercenary.

Capitalism, competition and the free market have created limitless choice for consumers; or that is what we like to believe. There is a car that celebrates my inner-city lifestyle, chewing gum that expresses my carefree yet enamel-conscious attitude and cologne that helps me feel sophisticated without risking my fragile masculinity. Chances are, there are three identical equivalents of each of these products that represent something completely different to each of their respective owners.

Holding marketing solely responsible for the technocratic, corporate stronghold in which we obediently consume would not be fair. Sadly for marketing departments, they are the most visible example of managerial vocabulary in action, often at its most systematic and distant.* Again, this is not their fault – the corporate world is about solutions and systems, not about doubt and uncertainty. Marketing strives to compartmentalise the individual into something predictable and uniform.

"This is demeaning to us both."

Marketing has a noticeable effect despite the ethical dilemmas. After both writing marketing plans and serving time as a promotional pamphlet-monkey on the street, it is easy to start viewing people as commodities. When does ‘getting your name out there’ become manipulation of the impressionable? Is it wrong to make millions selling a useless product by ‘establishing a need’ through successful advertising? Should you expose people to sunny, pastoral labelling of farm-fresh meat and eggs when the product was most likely produced in a mechanical processing plant?

Be it gullible people or crafty corporations, branding is a straight-jacket of emotive deception disguised as a cashmere suit - best illustrated by effective products like Coca-Cola. Since its first outdoor advertisement in 1894, the marketing of this particular drink has never had much to do with cola. Coke is reminiscence about times gone by, happiness, fun, friends, summer, winter, the beach ball and the polar bear – never rotting teeth, poor labour practices or childhood obesity. For those in marketing, Coke is the gold standard and shows how one product can be portrayed in a million different ways.**

The more money companies spend on marketing, the more meaningless and patronising it becomes – an expense all too familiar to banks. Perhaps your author is not the ‘target market’ when it comes to such campaigns, but how anybody with half a brain believes the customer-service utopia depicted in bank commercials is anything less than an insult to our intelligence is beyond me. Credit, however, must be given to those in charge of such campaigns. There is an art in deluding the public into thinking that being gingerly prostrated over a comfortable couch and lubricated with a loving smile will make corporate buggery all the more pleasant.

There is little doubt that marketing serves some noble purposes – promoting a charity organisation can hardly be called evil. However, the burden of proof lies with those in the profession and their assurance that not once in their careers have they deceived, manipulated or blatantly lied to the public for their masters' purposes. For multinational corporations, the illusion of choice is essential to their success and marketing is the means to achieve this end. Every time we choose a product we have been unconsciously affected by such means. Considering an argument such as this is now cliché, one can only vouch for its effectiveness.

* Monash University has a whole dictionary of marketing terms – ‘actionability’ being a personal favourite.
 ** Unlike a certain diabetic Diet Coke drinker who is, and always will be, assumed to be a gossipy female administration assistant.