As a 'white-hat' marketer (I work for some place that's similar to Vote411/ The League of Women Voters and I initially started in library outreach; I don't thin

As a 'white-hat' marketer (I work for some place that's similar to Vote411/ The League of Women Voters and I initially started in library outreach; I don't think anybody would consider my work unethical), the issue is the need for constant growth and profits. You can do cool and interesting things in marketing and outreach and there are actual use cases for them. For example, libraries often carry unconventional items, and making the community aware that they can borrow a sewing machine/get seeds to plant/get museum passes is technically marketing and 'creating' a need, but it's not exploitative. It's a very similar situation to dev work in that if I were willing to chuck my ethics out the window, I would make a lot more money, and marketing people do also like money.