Seth Godin: Is marketing evil?

2 CommentsOpinion

This is more of a tweet than anything, but since Seth Godin only seems to allow trackbacks, I need to comment on my own blog in regards to his post Is marketing evil? It’s not about marketing. It’s about advertising. Advertisers use psychological tricks to market stuff. Watch the PBS program The Presuaders if you have any doubts about this. Advertisers have an unfair advantage over the masses. Average people don’t realize they’re being manipulated by ads, especially TV ads. That’s why it should be imperative to teach media literacy in schools. People need to be equipped to see through the tricks so that they can judge any “marketing” message that may be obscured by the manipulation in the ad.

2 Comments

  1. Justin Cooper

    Marketers and advertisers are only really ‘evil’ if they tell lies or encourage people to do evil things. Fortunately consumers are getting smarter by the minute, because they are learning to de-code glib and untruthful marketing & media messages. This has forced (or encouraged) the better marketers and advertisers to back up their claims with facts. Oh sure, you can make a lot of arguments stick with dodgy facts, but in an age of nearly instant feedback and networking, the lies are exposed very quickly.
    So good marketers (with good consciences) tell great stories based on true facts that inspire their customers to buy goods and services or adopt different behaviours.
    This may sound naive, but I encourage marketers to try it (if they haven’t already) as consumers are often a lot smarter than marketers give them credit for.

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