Comments on: Making a difference through marketing.

By: David Esrati

David Esrati — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 17:00:00 +0000

Or, you make advertising that is worth keeping- useful, beautiful, interesting.
For example:
I like ads painted on buildings- they last, they cover up the wall- and they can serve 2 masters: the building owner who needed his building painted, and the advertiser who paid for it and needed the publicity. Unfortunately- local governments think all outdoor ads are bad…
or, that billboards make the landscape ugly. Only if the ads are bad.
All of this roots back to Howard Gossage: “People don’t read ads, they read what interests them- and sometimes it’s an ad.”
Make advertising useful- and beautiful and merge the brand into the social landscape- and all of a sudden- ads don’t have to be bad or wasteful.

By: sk

sk — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 18:38:00 +0000

Fair enough, but I guess I’d argue–as a liberal–that within our society, the alignment of business interests with civic needs and responsibilities is the role of government, though our government has often abdicated this role to serve other interests.

As many people more involved in the subject than me have pointed out, some of the biggest successes in creating thriving markets in alternative energy sources (in Germany and Japan) have been created by policy and legislation. You don’t have to be scholar in American History to know why our government hasn’t been able to pass similar measures. While all these progressive values are great, it generally takes the power of the law to get the worst offenders to balance economic gain with social good. Especially when the question of social good is so debatable, at least from the other side of the aisle.

By: Adrian

Adrian — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 16:04:00 +0000

HI Scott,

Good to stay grounded on this, of course you're absolutely right, there are different ways to make a difference.

However, I'd argue that the biggest offenders can deliver the biggest impacts if they can be reformed. I think that letting marketing off the hook is wrong. Business and the survival of our planet have to be aligned. They can't be separate activities.

By: sk

sk — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 14:23:00 +0000

And/or we could leave the profession of marketing altogether, and work for a non-profit devoted to some form of social justice (full disclosure: a job i’ve turned down in the past because I have 3 kids and like visiting Italy). My own politics are aligned with these progressive sentiments, Adrian, but I’m equally uneasy about making such Utopian claims about the role of marketing as a form of social transformation. There are far more direct ways to impact the social good than getting people to buy different kinds of stuff–though you tend to make less of a good living doing them. Please take this comment in the spirit of inspiring a civil debate, Adrian, but there are times when I think we are trying too hard to disguise our role as an engine in a capitalist consumer economy which is designed to and depends on generating more consumption. Should we be a little more skeptical about our role and motivations? Or did I misunderstand your intent here?