Marketing has a bad reputation, and for a reason.

Observing people’s reactions when you tell them you work in marketing is somehow distressing. Unless someone is a business person, the chances of receiving a negative comment about marketing are high. Okay, actually it’s not a chance. It’s a certainty. But what if I told you that marketing is not only brand bla bla?

Recently, I was at an event organized by the Berlin Marketing Club regarding new challenges for the marketing branch in the future, and a Professor said something that really stayed with me: "During university years, Marketing is one of the—if not the—favorite students’ courses. But after university, something changes, and marketing turns out to have a rather negative connotation in business environments, and in society."

I thought: wow. This is true. Marketing does indeed have a bad reputation So the following question I asked myself was: what drives this transformation of thoughts or shapes it altogether?

Marketing: a pot pourri of economics, social sciences and psychology

Well, most people who don’t have a background in marketing studies and economics don’t realize that economics is a social science. Which means it studies human behavior: economic behavior. As humans, we are prone to make choices that lead to the highest possible rate of satisfaction with minimal cost/effort. That’s what you would call rational behavior.

Marketing is the branch of economics that studies how to market a product, promote it, make it known, and ultimately, how, where, and when to sell it best. Obviously, there are different schools of thought on how to approach marketing. And personally, I despise aggressive and manipulative marketing tactics. And that’s why I’m so fond of Performance marketing. But this is another story for another article.

Marketing as a Social Science

Beyond the Bad Reputation: The Case for Human-Centric Marketing

Marketing is ontologically human-centric. It has to be. It has to speak to your needs and wants. It has to be compelling to YOU. I think one of the major negative connotations around marketing comes from the erroneous assumption that its goal is to minimize humans to mere consumers, put them in a box/category, and use their weaknesses to push them to buy. Consumerism. Standardization. Buy, buy, buy. 

Nevertheless—sorry to disappoint the most anti-capitalistic among us—needs and wants are person-driven. Not market-driven, nor marketing-driven. They can be influenced for sure, but it would be a hyperbole to think that we have no say in the matter. Upgrading your surroundings, yourself, and your look is something we have always wanted to do as humans. The first time we consciously recognized it was with the definition of the Diderot Effect, before marketing was even a thing.

As Wikipedia tells us: ‘The Diderot Effect is a social theory and behavioral phenomenon where acquiring a new possession often creates a spiral of consumption, leading to the purchase of additional, often unnecessary, items to create a sense of unity or match the new, higher-quality item. It stems from the desire for aesthetic and identity consistency, where one new item makes existing belongings feel obsolete.’

I know it would be nicer to think that all silly and unnecessary purchases we make are driven by the evil marketing force. Outsource guilt to us marketers, go on. But sorry to disappoint you darlings, they mostly come from you.

I’m Greta, founder of Na-triarch Agency. Every piece you read here is written personally by me, blending my academic background in political science and economics with my personal life story and the best practices for data-driven paid media strategy.

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