Introduction

(Image: Tom Griffiths)

“A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well – or ill?”

John Steinbeck, East of Eden

A few years ago, I became Sales & Marketing Director at the famously ethical, campaigning visitor attraction and charity, the Eden Project. One day, its co-founder, Sir Tim Smit, sent me an email in which he wrote “Marketing is the Devil’s art”. But I was amazed to discover that I wasn’t surprised that he felt that way; he was in good company.

As a teenager, when I discovered the wondrous Douglas Adams, I was aware of his loathing of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation’s Marketing Department (“a bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came”) and the fact that he included marketers in the ‘B’ Ark, his spaceship full of useless people (when they crash land on a new, primitive planet, they can’t invent the wheel until they’ve researched what colour it should be).

And the view is still widely expressed; in a recent issue of GQ, for example, marketing author Seth Godin’s readership was described as “reptilian marketing types”.

And of course the notoriously vitriolic comedian Bill Hicks, in an infamous routine, said “By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing, kill yourself…. No, really. There is no rationalisation for what you do and you are Satan’s little helper. Kill yourself. Seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good…. Rid the world of your evil [expletive deleted] machinations.”

Evil? Really? Evil? I was a church choirboy! I recycle! I do voluntary work! Most marketing people I know are ordinary, decent folk going to work, paying their mortgages, supporting their families. Myself, I fell into it. As a teenager, I wanted to be a graphic designer, but didn’t fancy art school, so I went to university and read History instead. When I graduated, I still wanted to do something creative, but I was advised to find a career that allowed me to combine my interest in design with my analytical skills, honed while studying Renaissance Europe or the First World War. Marketing fitted the bill perfectly.

In fact marketing, to my mind, should be a good thing. What marketers do is identify issues, work with designers to create things to address them (which we call ‘products’ or ‘services’) and tell people about them as effectively as possible. Sometimes these products are sold, sometimes for profit – but by no means always. We use research to understand customers – especially what issues they want solved and how best to communicate with them. The marketer is the voice of the customer inside organisations – we’re the guys who listen to you. We exist to make you happy!

But I also appreciate that sometimes problems are over-stated, or even invented, in order to create demand for a product. And I know that there are plenty of products that don’t solve problems at all, that exist solely to be traded for no other motive than financial gain, often leveraging our baser instincts. I’m aware that the public has concerns about how big data and consumer psychology might be used against them. I’m aware that driving consumption may seem to be our raison d’etre and that’s an issue in a world that’s running out of resources. I’m aware that many feel we only care about money, and at the expense of the finer things in life like art, beauty, aesthetics.

What’s the reality? Is marketing its own toxic brand? In my career I’ve seen both sides of the coin. So I’m going on a journey to explore the subject of whether marketing can be used for good, or if it’s only part of the problem, and I’m going to do that by speaking to people wiser and smarter than I am.

But before I begin, a couple of things to note. I do try to keep a weather eye on doing the right thing, but I don’t claim to be as pure as the driven snow - I’ll certainly try not to be too hypocritical, though. I should also mention that while I very much hope people of faith will contribute, I’m not really one of them, and this isn’t a religious blog – it’s really about ethics.

I’m going to begin by conversing with the man who perhaps kickstarted this little project: Sir Tim Smit. My recent interview with him will appear here shortly. So, is marketing the Devil’s art?