People who think advertising is a new thing that is somehow ‘evil’ haven’t read any history books lately.
I’ve borrowed this excellent image from Zazzle.com, where you can make customized stuff in small quantities. They’ll be less annoyed about this if you click here to visit their site!
(Today I ran into someone I knew in high school and they seemed appalled that I’d ended up in marketing, so I dug this up from my old blog on ERE.net and I’ve reprinted it here. It was originally part of a series on personal branding, but I think it works fine by itself.)
Advertising: The profession everyone loves to hate
I’ve spent my entire working life in 3 industries that people think are filled with cheats, charlatans and idiots: Real estate, advertising, and recruiting.
So I’m used to the faces people make – as though they’d just sucked on a particularly sinful lemon – when they hear what I do for a living. Many people can’t restrict themselves to just the faces, either, and are happy to tell me that all real estate agents/advertising people/recruiters are shallow, materialistic, fake, incompetent, mean, and self-absorbed.
If I’m meeting them at, say, a dinner party where the other guests work in non-profits, government, academia or healthcare, there often ensues a lengthy discussion on how advertising types – and the evil corporations they represent – is pretty much responsible for the downfall of society.
The anti-branding position goes like this:
“If marketing people didn’t keep trying to convince people that they ‘needed’ 8 televisions, 3 cars, a 4000 sq foot home with a 100-ft frontage, several $1000 handbags and a perfect size 2 figure, we’d all be much happier, society would be a meritocracy, eating disorders would be eliminated, and China would have uncensored internet access.”
Thanks to the popularity of Mad Men, this is usually followed up with some comment about how shady advertising types are a recent invention of the past 50 years, and that we need to be stamped out before the sky actually does fall in.
Except that’s not really true…
Let’s just break it down:
“…8 televisions, 3 cars, a 4000 sq ft home, etc.”
Guess what? Once you have enough to eat, are safe from predators, have a roof over your head and sufficient clothing to keep from dying of exposure, everything else you own is just stuff you want, not stuff you need.
“…with a 100-ft frontage…”
The human desire for land precedes advertising agencies by about 10,000 years, as evidenced by about a zillion wars over various patches of ground throughout the whole of human history.
“…we’d all be much happier, society would be a meritocracy…”
If there were any actual examples, in all of recorded human history, of societies in which happiness was rife and a meritocracy prevailed, I’d have an easier time believing this.
“…eating disorders would be eliminated…”
I hate unrealistic airbrushed models as much as anyone, but eating disorders have been documented since the Middle Ages, and there’s evidence to suggest they’ve been around for more than 10,000 years.
“…advertising types are a recent invention of the past 50 years…”
Advertising and marketing has been around as long as humans have – archeologists have found evidence of marketing messages in Ancient Greece and the Middle Ages, and classified ads in Ancient Rome. The first clear-cut examples of ‘modern’ advertising in the 15th century, and the first newspaper ad appeared in 1622 or so.
In other words: As soon as the first human wanted to get other humans to ‘do stuff’ (help with the boar-killing expedition, believe in their god, buy their corn, or fight their war), marketing’s existed.
What have we learned?
Since human society has managed to survive – nay, thrive! – 10,000 years of marketing and 500+ years of advertising, I feel certain that society is in no imminent danger of collapse.