h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I´m at a business school, and I hate marketing. Not because I´m not creative enough..just because it seems to be useless to learn any theory about "have a feeling of the market", "intuition and common sense", etc. However, there are some really funny and frapant campaigns (Flat Eric in Levi´s) which are worth to see, and less annoying than the usual washing powder bullshit.

But marketing works. If it didn't, those enormous departments within every organisation of a reasonable size would have been fired years ago. Wouldn't they? Mind you, if all that glitzy marketing really didn't work we'd still be using flipcharts and whiteboards instead of Powerpoint. We should all be thankful - without advertising, newspapers/magazines/websites would all cost more to the reader.

Marketing creates Need.

know anything about Budhism?

the gist of it is... desire causes pain.

Therefore: Marketing causes Pain.

When Advertising goes after people, they work to make people want and need something they don't already have. They cause 14 year old teeny boppers to want to buy Backstreet Boys albums... They convince '18' year olds that they want to smoke.

Marketing is a very bad thing... informing the public of your existance is one thing... But employing psycologists etc and marketing research to figure out how to make somebody want your widget enough to spend their money on it is just wrong, at least in my oppinion.

Oh... I never said I was a capitalist by the way

Frankly, I think that many of the problems today can be traced to marketing...

Marketing is indeed inescapable... and marketing brings pain...

Marketing is Inescapable Pain.

Well, this is what I wanted to say, that Marketing is far more than informing people about cost saving opportunities...
The expression of consumer society says something about the overvaluation of it.

No, no no, you are talking about only one side of marketing. The push side as it were. Here lookie what we got, you want it? yeah you do, look who else has it. etc etc etc.

But the positive side of marketing is that its used to find out what people want and then make it. If it wasn`t for marketing, I wouldn`t be sitting in an internet cafe, cos no-one would have realised that people want them. You probably wouldn`t be using that computer you got there, cos IBM decided in 1960 there was only a need for 6 computers in the world.

If the marketing department of any company is actually any good, they`ll do their work, find out what people want and then get the company to make it, and then they won`t have to push so hard to sell it.

Think of it as the cold caller that tries to sell you a conservatory for your 4th floor apartment, compared with the guy that found out that you actually want nicer looking windows that will keep the heat in in winter, and then got his company to make them at a price you`re happy to pay.

I work in marketing for a global insurance company. Don't shoot! I have to agree with trenchcoat by the way - and my latest thought is: "How long can you keep growing?" Isn't that the ultimate problem of capitalism? There is only so much growth - else you have to "create markets" - that's actually what people do now. It's not as naively innocent as finding out "what people want and making it".

"I work in marketing ...... else you have to "create markets" - that's actually what people do now. It's not as naively innocent as finding out "what people want and making it"."

What is wrong with creating markets. In 1976 a lady called Patsy Bloom "created a market" by coming up with the idea of offering an insurance policy to cover the veterinary cost of treating peoples pets. Nobody else was doing this at the time and nobody had any insurance for their pooch or moggy. About 1/2 Million policies are now issued annually by Pet Plan - the firm she started to service this market. This is an exact example of creating a market by finding out what people want and making it. So is critcial illness cover, and permanent health insurance and, and, and...

I have no connection with insurance and my only connection with marketing is that I run my own business and sell things by finding out what people want and making it.