Marketing is the main driver of hyper-consumption. The race to go viral, the product obsolescence, the fads, the FOMO, the need for social affirmation.... they're all warranted.
Can you you point me towards examples of ‘Marketing Elected Public Servants’ such as Pierre Poilievre ? It’s such a fascinating ‘Media Marketing Case Study’ - with an astonishing & undeniable ‘BackStory’. The ‘Term’ - ‘Malignant Hybrid Partisan Marketing’ really needs a new ‘catchall’ phrasing when a majority of US controlled Vested Interest ‘conservative’ Mainstream Media churns or ‘chums’ the Social Media ‘waters’ with Divisive Propaganda.. 🦎🏴☠️🇨🇦
I agree with many of your criticisms of modern marketing and its effects. I also agree that some of your hypotheticals represent at least a less harmful direction. But from the outside (I work in tech, not marketing), I don't see a realistic way to turn the ship.
What can one person within that system do? What can someone outside that system do to help?
An excellent question. One that I'm trying to answer myself.
Each article I put out is meant to chip away at the "how." Eventually I hope to have something solid enough to be offered as an alternative to the status quo.
Since you're in tech I recommend taking the Center for Humane Technology course, it's free and quite comprehensive. All Tech is Human has a great Mentorship program as well that you can join. There's a human design course that I'm forgetting the name of right now, but can look into it. There's actually quite a few options for tech, if you need more help I can help with the research.
To give you some examples of what I'm currently doing - copy changes (no false or misleading statements, no FOMO etc) No 50 steps funnels. Sales pages are a lot less bombastic. Tracking is mentioned and explained from the get go. Remove contacts that don't interact. Make it easy to remove themselves from the list. Etc.
My question was more about marketing than tech; I've been a part of improvement efforts in the tech industry for most of my career. Something that's important when looking at "technology" as an industry is that software engineers already have a very human focus. In the simplest possible terms, technologists are tool makers. The things we build don't have any effect in a vacuum, only when used by people. This means that many tech ethics questions start with "Who is this tool helping? What will it help them do?"
Your substack caught my attention because one of the common ethical-tech rallying points over the last decade has been "Don't help marketers; you'll get Google at best and Facebook at worst". Seeing someone with an inside perspective identify the same issues that have pushed people like me in that direction gave me hope that things might be starting to change.
Good luck on your journey. I hope your ideas get traction and our industries reach a point where we can collaborate with more trust and optimism.
I completely understand and agree with your point. I'm currently working on a SaaS project surrounded by technologists, and it is, in many ways, a breath of fresh air.
As marketers we live in extremely well isolated echo chambers, rarely (if ever) questioning ethics. "Money in, money out" is the prevailing ethos.
I just to point out that it wasn't this cut throat when I started. Unfortunately... now, there's a very low barrier to entry, we have tools for literally *everything,* and we have immense pressure to bring in leads, clients, money etc.
Can you you point me towards examples of ‘Marketing Elected Public Servants’ such as Pierre Poilievre ? It’s such a fascinating ‘Media Marketing Case Study’ - with an astonishing & undeniable ‘BackStory’. The ‘Term’ - ‘Malignant Hybrid Partisan Marketing’ really needs a new ‘catchall’ phrasing when a majority of US controlled Vested Interest ‘conservative’ Mainstream Media churns or ‘chums’ the Social Media ‘waters’ with Divisive Propaganda.. 🦎🏴☠️🇨🇦
What does it mean to be a "rogue marketer"?
I agree with many of your criticisms of modern marketing and its effects. I also agree that some of your hypotheticals represent at least a less harmful direction. But from the outside (I work in tech, not marketing), I don't see a realistic way to turn the ship.
What can one person within that system do? What can someone outside that system do to help?
An excellent question. One that I'm trying to answer myself.
Each article I put out is meant to chip away at the "how." Eventually I hope to have something solid enough to be offered as an alternative to the status quo.
Since you're in tech I recommend taking the Center for Humane Technology course, it's free and quite comprehensive. All Tech is Human has a great Mentorship program as well that you can join. There's a human design course that I'm forgetting the name of right now, but can look into it. There's actually quite a few options for tech, if you need more help I can help with the research.
To give you some examples of what I'm currently doing - copy changes (no false or misleading statements, no FOMO etc) No 50 steps funnels. Sales pages are a lot less bombastic. Tracking is mentioned and explained from the get go. Remove contacts that don't interact. Make it easy to remove themselves from the list. Etc.
Thank you for taking the time to respond.
My question was more about marketing than tech; I've been a part of improvement efforts in the tech industry for most of my career. Something that's important when looking at "technology" as an industry is that software engineers already have a very human focus. In the simplest possible terms, technologists are tool makers. The things we build don't have any effect in a vacuum, only when used by people. This means that many tech ethics questions start with "Who is this tool helping? What will it help them do?"
Your substack caught my attention because one of the common ethical-tech rallying points over the last decade has been "Don't help marketers; you'll get Google at best and Facebook at worst". Seeing someone with an inside perspective identify the same issues that have pushed people like me in that direction gave me hope that things might be starting to change.
Good luck on your journey. I hope your ideas get traction and our industries reach a point where we can collaborate with more trust and optimism.
I completely understand and agree with your point. I'm currently working on a SaaS project surrounded by technologists, and it is, in many ways, a breath of fresh air.
As marketers we live in extremely well isolated echo chambers, rarely (if ever) questioning ethics. "Money in, money out" is the prevailing ethos.
I just to point out that it wasn't this cut throat when I started. Unfortunately... now, there's a very low barrier to entry, we have tools for literally *everything,* and we have immense pressure to bring in leads, clients, money etc.