Misconceptions About Marketing

The business world as a whole suffers slanderous assumptions about the inherent nature of business, but particular aspects of business may receive a larger amount of fallacious criticism than others.  Marketing is an example of a subcategory of business activities that is especially criticized by some for its allegedly deceptive nature and supposed power to brainwash consumers.  Although there are ways to use marketing for selfish or otherwise immoral ends, it does not have to be used in such a way.

Marketing, in a business context, is nothing more than the public promotion of that which a seller offers to buyers.  While there are various strategies a marketer could use and various intentions that might be behind marketing, morally positive or negative, none or them have to entail any sort of distortion of the truth or desire to totally reorient the consumer's life around the product or service being advertised.  Increasing awareness of a seller's inventory is not a predatory thing left to itself.

Trying to make a product or service look appealing to consumers and actively trying to persuade those consumers to voluntarily exchange money for the thing in question is not deceptive.  Although some individuals who lack self-control and are hyper-interested in a wide array of products might feel pressured by marketing, there is not even anything psychologically coercive about using advertisements or commercials--or any other form of marketing (such as in-person promotion of products).

This is not to say that there are no ways to use marketing for irrational, immoral ends, even if the error is only in the intentions behind the marketing.  For instance, an executive who approves of a marketing strategy because he sees consumers as nothing more than potential sources of profit has economically objectified his or her consumer base and cannot legitimately claim to be morally neutral or innocent.  Similarly, anyone behind a dishonest marketing campaign cannot be soundly defended.

Marketing is logically or morally flawed when it promotes stereotypes about gender or race (or any other such category), promotes genuine lies as if they are truths, is intended to build interest in an immoral service, or is motivated by a desire for profit above all else.  Outside of such cases, however, marketing a product or service that is morally neutral is itself morally neutral.  Where there is no deception, greed, or simple moral apathy, there is nothing objectionable about the practice of business marketing.