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Thread: Marketing - friend or foe?

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    Marketing - friend or foe?

    A very interesting discussion is going on under the title "Woolies steals Frankies ....", which has given rise to a number of other issues one of which relates to the darker side of marketing. The questions that arise from that Thread are whether Marketing

    is a friend or foe? ...
    can it be trusted? ....
    is it based on sound moral practice or does it distort and twist our moral fibre? .....
    is it a craft that has emotional manipulation as its primary intention? ......

    Sure, there is a good responsible informative side to some marketing, but is the good side not being overshadowed by an increasing darker side?
    Is "successful" marketing not becoming a trade that attacks and gradually destroys most of what we should be protecting for the sake of our well being?
    Has the bad side of marketing not blurred our sense of what is right vs what is wrong, often leaving us in the grey (undecided/confused) zone between right and wrong?

    Is it an issue & should something be done about it. If so how big a problem is "dark marketing" and what should be done?

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    Diamond Member Blurock's Avatar
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    With increasing competition, retailers are stepping up their efforts to reach consumers and their wallets.

    We all know how consumers are manipulated to buy certain items by positioning it at strategic points in a store. Media advertising is also evolving and advertising agencies has to come up with new ideas and methods all the time.

    This can be a very interesting discussion!
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    It seems that marketing has seen an increasing trend toward manipulating as many people as possible to put their hands into their pockets, extract their hard earned money and spend it on something they really dont need but have been hoodwinked into believing they must have.

    That leads me to contemplate that in the higly competiive world Blurock correctly mentions, we are breeding a people who are paid to break through and beyond moral boundaries with insensitive regard to their "victims" - those that end up spending money they really shouldnt on something that will add no meaningful benefit to their lives.

    In the Frankies vs Woolies thread reference was made to books that convey some apparently mind blowing information. Im not a great reader but would be interested to learn the summarised low down on what that information is. adrianh?

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    Diamond Member Justloadit's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by gac View Post
    In the Frankies vs Woolies thread reference was made to books that convey some apparently mind blowing information. Im not a great reader but would be interested to learn the summarised low down on what that information is. adrianh?
    I did post a URL which highlights 16 examples from the book. Here it is http://www.businessinsider.com/brand...nant-mothers-1
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    Diamond Member AndyD's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by gac View Post
    In the Frankies vs Woolies thread reference was made to books that convey some apparently mind blowing information. Im not a great reader but would be interested to learn the summarised low down on what that information is. adrianh?
    If you want a copy of Brandwashing send me a pm with your gmail address. I have it as pdf (2.3mb), lit (2.8mb), epub (2.8mb), mobi (1.9mb) and rtf (2.8mb) formats so state your preference please.
    _______________________________________________

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    Diamond Member Neville Bailey's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AndyD View Post
    If you want a copy of Brandwashing send me a pm with your gmail address. I have it as pdf (2.3mb), lit (2.8mb), epub (2.8mb), mobi (1.9mb) and rtf (2.8mb) formats so state your preference please.
    Andy, please could you send me a pdf copy of Brandwashing? My gmail address is nvll.bl@gmail.com.
    Thanks!
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    At the end of the day the purpose of marketing is to get a person to buy into whatever it is that you are trying to accomplish, be it sell a car, get a vote, get a job or even get a girl. I don't think that the antics of marketers are anything new, it has just gotten more sophisticated. The sophistication has led to a point where fMRI scanning is used to see exactly how marketing strategies work within our brains. I am not even going to ask if it is right or wrong because I think it is a nonsensical question - the tools are available and they are being used. Lets take the question of marketing from a different perspective: a guy wants to get a girl: he speaks to all her friends to find out what she likes, what she likes to talk about, what she likes to eat, where she likes to go, what perfume she likes etc. He then goes out an makes all her dreams come true....until they get married and she finds out that they don't actually like the same things etc. ....and this form of marketing is done every day. ...or the job interview, now lets be honest, we all stretch the truth a bit, you won't tell the interviewer about the time you got to work with a terrible hangover and nearly destroyed the network or the time you lost a customer because you were incompetent, no, you'll say you always do your best etc. From the employers perspective, he will tell you that they always tell the truth and that they always keep the customer informed, yet they don't tell the customer that they got in deeper than they should and that they are waiting for an expert to bail them out.

    Ok, so, marketers who sell in exteremely sophisticated ways are being slated, but why? Just as it is a girls duty not to sleep with every twit who makes a play, it is a customers duty not to buy into everything that comes his way. Some will say it is unfair for the shop to make the baby section smell of baby powder to make the ladies buy more, why?

    The matter becomes problematic when the truth is bent too far, the question is: how far is too far? Take Coke Zero for example - They say that the product doesn't contain any sugar (this is true) - they don't say that it does contain caramel. Is this wrong? or a car company says that their car can get a fuel consumption of 0l/1km under certain circumstances - they don't say that it is when the car is dropped vertically down a mine shaft. So, the problem isn't always in what they say, a lot of time it is in what they don't say. Like a a man sweeping the perfect girl off her feet and forgetting to tell her that he actually has Aids and that he has one year to live or the pharmaceutical company that says a product cures cancer but omits to tell the patient that the drug kills him by destroying his liver.

    Ok, so what is the answer, I can't say that I know, but I do know that we want people to buy whatever we sell and that it all comes out in the wash eventually. I think that just as the marketers are getting smarter, the buyer needs to get smarter. If the buyer feels he has been done in then he needs to fight for his rights. As I said before, there is no difference between making a play for a girl and trying to sell a car, it is up to the girl to be mindful of the tactics that are being used and it is up to the car buyer to be mindful too. Now girls, please don't think that I am making the comparison lightly or that I am saying that women are stupid - to the contrary, I think that women learn very quickly to see through the ploys that men use and that the really smart women use those ploys to their own advantage. If the guy wants to shower you with dinners and gifts, that is his parogative, it doesn't mean you owe him anything. And by the same token, if a company claims to give you a FREE holiday, it doesn't mean you have to buy their timeshare.

    I think that some people may be upset by these comparisons but I think that it is the way of the world in all things, we get our way by figuring out how to make it attractive to the other party, be it selling, politics, love or even talking the kids into mowing the lawn. Some will say that you shouldn't talk the kids into mowing the lawn, they should just do as you say, tough one, what happens the day you have a stroke and tell them to play in the traffic.

    We are all both buyers and sellers at the end of the day. Both buyer and seller beware. Just as a seller can dupe a buyers, so can a buyer dupe a seller.

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    As Adrian rightfully said Caveat Emptor - let the buyer beware.

    There are many more consumer groups protecting our rights. Make use of them to gain more information about products, but also to complain about products or unethical actions.

    Considering how many people still get conned out of their pensions and savings, I can only assume that we must be easy pickings for trained marketers!
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    Agree with a lot, but not all, of what adrianh and all of what Blurock have posted.
    No question that marketers are being pushed to the limit in modern times, given the degree of competition and the level of capitalistic greed we live in but those factors can never ever justify taking things to a "darker" level.

    It is the extent to which marketers are "pushing the boundaries" of acceptable responsibility, moral, ethic and human value and the effect of this on societys well being that troubles me. And yes, what is acceptable/unacceptable to me is not necessararily the same for another or even across cultures but the point is that their has to be a limit at given that we, the current generation, have a responsibility to add value to the next generation. With that comes a responsibility to draw the boundary lines and act against mattes we adjudicate does not act in the best interest of society or threatnes the future generation.

    Personally, I think it is a load of irresponsible BS to adopt a passive resigned approach, sit idly on the sidelines and watch the "story unfold" defending our lack of action on the basis that that is the way it is. We can also ALWAYS find reasons to try and justify the actions of others but at the end of the day we have to follow the inner convictions we all have. What a load of C..P. WE are the individuals and ALWAYS the collective voice carries more clout than the singular, so it maes absolute sense to rally together. We alo have a responsibility to the emerging generation to protect and guard them against the things that they are not yet wordly wise to. If we dont we are guilty of having learned nothing from our own experiences or acting negligently.

    So what does all the above have to do with Marketing. Well nothing really but it says a lot about whatever the topic at hand is, marketing or otherwise, we must always take a balanced and fair approach BUT if we feel something is amiss we would be denying our inner convictions if we went to great lengths to suppress the very reason we were concerned in the first place.

    My own view is that we must live out our responsibilites because if we dont, the consequences are scary down the line.

    Best wishes for the New Year to you & your families & we will chat agin in 2012.

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