Ever since I was a child, I hated marketing. Now I’m a grown-up and I still hate the most of the qualities of marketing.
The reason I hate marketing is because it just feels wrong. Advertisers trying to sell me things that I don’t want–to use with something I don’t own–to buy with money I don’t have.
The more I learn about marketing, the more I see the manipulative side of marketing. In general, marketers will sell you anything they want so they can make a profit at your expense, while an entire pile of products sit unused or destroyed in the back of your closet, under your bed, in the garage, or on ebay. Trash heaps and landfills are filled with plastic toys, computers, cel phones, all because we are in search of the next great thing to fill some void in our life.
I’m sorry, marketers, but no. I don’t need your product. I don’t want your product, and I really wish you’d just leave me alone.
Media tries to paint everything in the most glodrious light.
Marketers try to convince us we need what they sell.
Comic book authors try to convince us we need to hear the story of another hero.
Politicians try to convince us to vote for them.
Food manufacturers want us to eat Doritos instead of Pringles.
With Christmas on the way, toy companies want to convince us that our 6 year olds need more Transformers and Barbies and Ponies and movies.
When and where does it stop? Apparently it’s not stopping anytime soon. With new marketing technology, information, systems, and the internet making it easier than ever for us to stay connected, publish our own material, market our own products, sell our own products, get our own fan base of thousands, and have a chance of owning our own multi-million dollar company from the comfort of our garage. More and more people will be offering and marketing their talents.
The onslaught of messages, material, visuals, screenings, commercials, webinars, powerpoints, facebook and twitter ramming down messages every second of the day may make life unbearable.
We know how easy it is to be manipulated. It is easy to get caught up in the spirit of the holidays that we turn all our efforts to consumerism. We fall for the markets that prey on our sense of duty to do good. We want to help charities. We want our children to have toys. We want the nice cars. We want a roof over our head. We want to be able to eat. We want clean water. We want the newest Zelda video game for Wii or the latest Call of Duty.
With so many shining objects, vying for our attention and our dollars, is it any wonder we have a hard time staying on target with what really matters in our own life?
It is imperative that we put blinders on to these marketing gimmicks that have no substance. Life is too short to fall for substandard ploys. We need to only buy the things that will encourage us, benefit us, or offer a good solution to a real problem.
I pains me greatly when people tell me to spend money to get our economy rolling again. I don’t like to buy things for the sake of buying things. I only like to buy things I think will help me or those around me. We can spend our entire lives living in a fantasy world or we can live our fantasies.
In order to make a deep impact in the lives of others, any marketing efforts have to come from a connection with where you are at in your life at the time you are ready to implement it. Otherwise it is costing you not only money, but time. and I would venture to say that time is the most valuable commodity we have on the planet.
When you buy products, you better be 200% satisfied with what you are getting or else you will have been manipulated, sacrificing quality and substance for inflating marketer egos and profit margins.
When you make your products, make them something worth making. Don’t make them just to satisfy your own ego, make the comics that will actually make a difference in people’s lives. Give people a reason to read, so they’ll have a reason to live life to the fullest. Life is too short for anything less.
What reasons do you have to hate marketing?