The Marketing-is-Evil Myth

After a month of reporting on social marketing, I'm aware that criticism of marketing can easily lead into a rant about how marketing is another one of those professions where people are paid to lie (also see: journalists and lawyers).

And while this may be partly true, suggesting that all marketing is evil is no different than suggesting all journalists are incompetent. Because I'm still employed (barely) as a journalist, I have an interest in suggesting the opposite: not every single journalist is writing pointless, embarrassing stories. And not every marketing campaign or marketer is evil.

The idea behind social marketing -- a non-profit using marketing techniques to have people adopt behaviours that benefit themselves and society -- works. When people donate to a charity, they probably fail to realize a successful marketing campaign is the reason behind it.

Now that cause marketing -- a for-profit coupling a product with a social cause -- is popular, the risk that the cause gets lost in the quest for a greater profit exists. We just need to be mindful of the risk, but not reject cause marketing completely.

Besides those two types of marketing, regular marketing isn't all evil either. Everyone relies on marketing to learn about products and services. If a company wants customers, it has to launch a marketing campaign. There will be times when the marketing is better than the actual product, but that's a risk we take when buy something.

Not everything lives up to its label, and marketing doesn't live up to its always-evil tag.