I've watched all of Tom's lectures online and listened to a few of his radio interviews and one thing that came up over and over again was an apparent dislike of advertising/marketing.

I have to admit, this kinda hurts a little because that's my area of expertise/source of income. In one of those videos he mentioned that advertisers manipulate people on an emotional level and while true, I can't help but say "Who doesn't manipulate?"

Kids manipulate parents, spouses manipulate each other, job applicants manipulate the job interviewer etc...

We're saturated in "manipulation" (this word has a negative connotation) of all kinds.

I was wondering if it was merely a personal feeling Tom had or was it rooted in something from the Big Picture.

I would hate to be doing something my whole life only to be scolded by my guides when I keel over.

Chronopolis,

Sorry if being an adman is somewhat incompatible with the best intentions regarding preserving free will. Just think, you could have been a lawyer. Are there any lawyers involved here? There are no doubt lawyers with good intent, but why do there have to be so few of them out of the total?

Don't feel bad about a role in PMR that is very much part of and important to PMR society. If you didn't do it, someone else would. There are degrees of manipulation. Surely you can envisage advertisements that go too far in terms of using really effective manipulation and that are completely below the threshold of notice for the target. A dream to some admen but going too far for others. One can be in a manipulative profession and still remain ethical.

You will not be put down for being in your profession. You might get lectured if you are not among the 'good guys' when it is over. But you will not be punished. Think of say an engineer, my own professional life, who let bad materials or bad work pass and with bad results, even including death if perhaps a building collapses as a result. Or perhaps you get by with it and no negative consequences all your professional life. It is your Intent, not the outcome that matters.

Ted

chronopolis,

I think we can agree that manipulation being common is no excuse for doing it. That being said, you have to make the choices that are right for you, and while some advertising/marketing is manipulation, not all of it is. And, I think, while manipulation as a restriction of free will is bad, manipulation to increase free will is not. I don't really know what that means, but it is, nonetheless, true.

I don't think anyone here would judge your career, much less your character solely based on your career. While I haven't heard the comments you mentioned, I highly doubt that there is any equivalent profession to tax collector from christianity in MBT. If you are uncomfortable with your profession, I'm sure you'll know what to do.

Chron,

This link leads to thoughts of a man who was a hot operator in the marketing game back in the fifties and sixties. He had an epiphany of sorts, and well, given your question, you might find some interest in what he has to say.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Nature-C ... om-TV.aspx

Marketing is, you could say, a skill set. It can be used for good or bad reasons like any other skill set.

In America, at least, by and large the stuff is crass, predatory, degrading, and toxic.

Enjoy the read, don't waste time with self judgments and fretting. Follow your heart, always follow your heart.

Montana

I'm into psychology which is the tool marketing uses to manipulate, but I raised kids highly unmanipulated in the usual ways, although I am finding it isn't manipulation free by any means. Not all manipulation is bad, but marketing made evil use of "my" psychology. :( It doesn't make us bad though. Turn it around somehow.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

This is an interesting exchange. I guess it's all in the eye of the beholder.

Personally, I have nothing against advertising. I think your job must be very interesting actually. My wife threw a marketing idea at me today (for her product) and I tweeked it, made her laugh out loud for about 30 seconds. Humor sells, sex sells. Just how it is.

Here's a thought or two. My brother in law specializes in decision science as it applies to marketing. Has a Ph.D. in the subject. He insists I am impacted my advertising. I insist that if he watched my shopping ventures he would think otherwise.

Isn't being "influenced" by advertising a certain sign of lack of free will? Couldn't our free will be exercised and improved by exposure to advertising and its temptations?

_________________
You see, the universe IS well designed. It is designed to have loop holes that have a low risk to reward relationship. With risk comes potential reward. And Mother Nature has known this for a long time. Why would anyone second guess her? It's by design.

That's an interesting point, but infuence doesn't necessarily reduce free will: This is part of the reason why I didn't think there was anything wrong with marketing - there is something wrong with marketing only when it reduces free will; other than that, I think it's fine. However, I suspect that Tom's statement had more to do with specific sorts of marketing with respect to, perhaps, MBT-type endeavors.

The problem with marketing as it is practiced in America today is that it insidiously sinks its tentacles directly into peoples' unconscious, co-opting fundamental physical and emotional drives to get people to buy their products. They even don't mind distorting and corrupting personality. The person has no choice in this process ahead of the game, though in the aftermath they may realize that their decision spaces were co-opted. (In fact they rarely ever do realize it. They just hate themselves and their lives, and feel victimized by their own idiotic decisions).

The reason that advertising exists is to get people to do or believe or invest in or buy things that they generally wouldn't if their decision process wasn't compromised.


-Montana

Well I certainly don't feel bad about what I do (in fact, I rather enjoy it), I just wanted to know if Tom had some kind of non-physical insight that I wasn't aware of.

In my line of advertising I sell products that solve problems so in my mind I'm helping the person help themselves. Now someone who sells cigarettes on the other hand.....;)

Just kidding.

Oh and btw Montana, that's a very interesting article you posted. I'm reading it right now. Thanks!

Perhaps...

Appeals to emotion, misleading claims, false dilemmas, etc...are marketing people worse than other people? What about intent? The virtual learning lab? Free will?

I don't like commercials and I tend to ignore them and consider them only with the most careful skepticism; perhaps I am in the minority; perhaps I've learned; perhaps commercials and the people falling for them are an emergent phenomena of an information age. There is a chicken/egg problem with this advertising/marketing dialog.

Thoughts?

I don't know what to say without going into an extended dissertation. I probably, if I had a month of free time, could put together a respectable master's level thesis on public relations, marketing, psycho-analytic theory, and the downfall of American civilization. And still I would only be scratching the surface.

At bottom, I guess it is a matter of people collectively operating from a level of selfishness, un-necessary selfishness, instead of reasonable selfishness, mixed with a sense of community, that brought it all about.

Ah well. We start, individually and collectively, from where we are, and move on as best as we can. That is the bottom line with the matter. That is always how it is anyway, eh?

-Montana

I suppose it is.

Give me a bit of time and I could write a paper on how high entropy is the cause of the world's ills and propose a solution to the problem...oh wait...

...ah wait.... Tom did write MBT.

Sure; Somehow I had missed and expression of misgivings about advertising and marketing though. But it would make sense.... trying to influence other beings for one's own personal gain is not exactly consistent with the idea of lowering entropy; even less so with the practice of 'love'.

It must be an interesting field though.... their research is well more funded than any univerisity's could hope to be, and, where ever it is conducted (yes, some funds do go to university research) it is almost certainly to be kept forever secret.

-Montana

Marketing self seems to be the thing to avoid, to me. It's obnoxious, right?
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

My perception is that in NPMR-lands, at least the ones with which I am familiar, ( a very narrow set) the very idea of marketing would be almost unthinkable, and when thought, would be considered a crass vulgarity in the extreme. Even to share the idea of doing that with someone there would be like wiping snot on someone's shirt here.

Separately, from the above referenced book, Jerry Manders' "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television" here is this:

If you accept the existence of advertising, you accept a system designed to persuade and to dominate minds by interfering in people's thinking patterns. You also accept that the system will be used by the sorts of people who like to influence people and are good at it. No person who did not wish to dominate others would choose to use advertising, or choosing it, succeed in it. So the basic nature of advertising and all technologies created to serve it will be consistent with this purpose, will encourage this behavior in society, and will tend to push social evolution in this direction.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Nature-C ... px?page=19


Now I should add that I don't want to offend anyone. To set the judgment ledger straight, I myself have done a hundred and one things at least as regrettable, just in this life alone.

Larger, I have to work at it to imagine having been a participant in twentieth century American civilization with any success and not have indulged in regrettable doings. Even... I am wandering off topic here... even, I remember the first time I voted. I felt "dirty" doing it, and I absolutely could not understand why at that time. It was only much later that I realized that, by doing so, I was adding, by my portion, an assertion that the system was legitimate; It is not. It is largely a fraud, at the federal level, and I knew so the time.

Returning, when successful marketing types move on, they discover that their communication skills are much beyond the average in NPMR. There is something of an adjustment period in how to use them, but they make excellent couriers or ambassadors, I expect.

-Montana