Is Marketing Evil?

             It is Sunday night and I am watching my daily dose of Mets baseball, the game is coming to an end and during the commercial break a McDonalds commercial runs at 10:30PM. For some reason my mouth starts to water, and I crave a midnight run. I get mad at myself because I had a great workout earlier in the day, I laid off of unhealthy food over the weekend, and I have seen some great progress towards my goal. At the same time it has been weeks since I have had something unhealthy, the next thing I know my baseball game has finished and I find myself heading towards the golden arches which are only a five minute drive away.

            Some can say that this is marketing at its best, but some might say that marketing is evil because of this. McDonalds fully understands that their food is not healthy yet they are making millions of Americans crave their food right before bed time. So should there be guidelines by which a marketing department lives by? Or should they be doing their job by making their company money? I believe that this is a non-ethical decision, ultimately it is not the company’s fault that Americans cannot resist a “big mac”, McDonalds is by no means shoving a burger and fries in the consumers mouth. The responsibility should lay on the consumer, we all decide what goes in our bodies, I am fully conscious of the mistakes I make and I am the one that will eventually pay for them. I believe that this argument is another way in which people blame large corporations for their faults, perhaps it is the consumer which has made the unethical decision.

            A marketing department’s job is to “know what the consumer needs, and through the 4Ps - product, price, place and promotion - develop a strategy to satisfy the consumer is what marketing is all about” (El Sayed and El Ghazaly, n.d). Although there are instances where marketing can go too far, I believe that marketing can hold their ethical standing by not taking advantage of minors. Controlling the minds of minors is definitely a place where a company can win on ethical standings, the minds of children are easily influenced and should not be taken advantage of.

            Aside from the protection of minors and children I believe everything else is fair game. We need to realize that as a society we are adults who are in charge of our own decisions, far too many times people are censored from the truth, and governments have a long history of stepping into censor and control thoughts and beliefs. In Russia it is known that “Everything had to be run though “official channels” to make sure it corroborated the state’s version of reality” (nearly somebody, 2013), the Russian media is able to control the thoughts of citizens through the news. Mind control through the media is a truly evil marketing scheme which takes advantage of those who cannot even inform themselves.

            I believe that for the most part marketing is fair and people can decide for themselves rather or not to be controlled by marketing. As a leader I would make sure that any marketing team I would ever have control over would do their job to the best of their ability. On the other hand I would make sure that my media team would never take advantage of those which are incapable of understanding the truth. Controlling those which do not have any choice is the worst manor of mind control. It is unethical to control those who are not capable of finding the truth for themselves, aside from that it is all fair game.

References:

-       Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex Adaptive Leadership: Embracing Paradox and Uncertainty. Farnham, Surrey: Gower.

-       Sayed, H. (n.d.). Is Marketing Evil?Marketing Viewed as a too. Retrieved September 13, 2015, from http://www.ethicsbasedmarketing.net/2.html

-       Dougherty, J. (2015, April 21). How the Media Became One of Putin’s Most Powerful Weapons. Retrieved September 13, 2015, from http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/04/how-the-media-became-putins-most-powerful-weapon/391062/