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Commenters here who are dying on this hill of “all marketing is evil” are forgetting that virtually all aspects of communicating _who_ created _what_ is a form

Commenters here who are dying on this hill of “all marketing is evil” are forgetting that virtually all aspects of communicating _who_ created _what_ is a form of marketing being intentionally used by the creator. Does your laptop sport a logo? Does your favorite local coffee shop have a sign on its front door? Does your food come in hip colors with interesting typeface? All of this is marketing and branding. When the author mentions the 9990 exposures to marketing, he’s likely referring to these that we all consciously rarely register or see. But it’s still marketing. Someone was probably paid to craft it. I’m not gonna die on the hill of “marketing isn’t evil”; it absolutely can be. I’d argue though that marketing is more often than not an extension of the company’s ethos. If you find some piece of marketing to be questionable or evil, let that be a reflection on the company more than the practice of marketing. After all, marketing is little more than paid, thoughtful, intentional opinion-sharing. Y’all are just marketing your anti-marketing sentiments for free.

_Nat_ 5y ago
> After all, marketing is little more than paid, thoughtful, intentional opinion-sharing. Y’all are just marketing your anti-marketing sentiments for free. Yeah, it'd be evil for a spammer to push posts without legitimate reason to believe that doing so would be beneficial to readers. I'd rather block anyone who'd so selfishly try to waste my time; their messages wouldn't be worth reading. But that's not what a lot of folks do. Many try to make helpful comments that they suspect will help benefit readers. Maybe sometimes they're wrong, but on the whole, a competent community-member ought to generally write things that'd tend to be worth it for others to read. Which is to say that, sure, we can frame discussions like this in terms of marketing -- even describing criticisms of marketing-practice as themselves being instances of marketing. But the moral there would be the observation that marketing CAN be good; not that much of it isn't evil. To be fair to your position though: yes, if marketing's thoughtful enough to act in the target's best-interests, including not bothering people when it wouldn't be worth their time to consider a proposal and up-front about information that might steer consumers elsewhere, then, sure, it can be good. However, the concern's that marketers are often pushing products/services whenever they can, attempting to skew consumers' perceptions toward the decision to buy rather than attempting to help consumers make optimal decisions.
username90 5y ago
> Y’all are just marketing your anti-marketing sentiments for free. The fact that we aren't paid to do it makes all the difference. If anyone here was paid to spread certain views I'd call that evil as well.

_Nat_ 5y ago

> After all, marketing is little more than paid, thoughtful, intentional opinion-sharing. Y’all are just marketing your anti-marketing sentiments for free. Yeah, it'd be evil for a spammer to push posts without legitimate reason to believe that doing so would be beneficial to readers. I'd rather block anyone who'd so selfishly try to waste my time; their messages wouldn't be worth reading. But that's not what a lot of folks do. Many try to make helpful comments that they suspect will help benefit readers. Maybe sometimes they're wrong, but on the whole, a competent community-member ought to generally write things that'd tend to be worth it for others to read. Which is to say that, sure, we can frame discussions like this in terms of marketing -- even describing criticisms of marketing-practice as themselves being instances of marketing. But the moral there would be the observation that marketing CAN be good; not that much of it isn't evil. To be fair to your position though: yes, if marketing's thoughtful enough to act in the target's best-interests, including not bothering people when it wouldn't be worth their time to consider a proposal and up-front about information that might steer consumers elsewhere, then, sure, it can be good. However, the concern's that marketers are often pushing products/services whenever they can, attempting to skew consumers' perceptions toward the decision to buy rather than attempting to help consumers make optimal decisions.

username90 5y ago

> Y’all are just marketing your anti-marketing sentiments for free. The fact that we aren't paid to do it makes all the difference. If anyone here was paid to spread certain views I'd call that evil as well.