It’s getting harder and harder to believe that marketing hasn’t ruined the world. And I say this as a professional marketer and copywriter.
There are simply too many examples of marketing making the world a worst place to deny this basic fact of life.
Does this make me a big, fat hypocrite?
No, it doesn’t. But it means I’m one of the few honest marketers around. Most gurus can’t be this authentic to look at the state of marketing and realize that most of it is hype.
Let’s dive into some examples of how marketing has made the world a worse place:
1. The demise of Google
This one happened both gradually and suddenly. Google used to be a place to get answers for your questions, real answers, answers that actually, yanno, answered.
But not anymore. And not solely because of AI either—though AI did put the final nail in the coffin for Google search.
The truth is marketers ruined Google. First it was keyword stuffing to rank high. Then, something far more subtle, yet somehow more sinister happened:
Google changed their algorithm for ranking. No longer could you stuff keywords into your article to rank high, now Google prioritized “long content.” And so, an article that should be a simple recipe and basic cooking instruction becomes a 50,000 word thesis that first must tell you about the author’s entire life story—not because you need her life story to cook a simple recipe, but because she needed to add her life story to please the Google overlords.
This applies even more sinisterly to any marketing search query. Instead of finding an answer, you instead find a HubSpot fluff piece—again a 50,000 word thesis but instead of getting a random person’s life story, you get an intern regurgitating other interns who wrote articles about marketing first.
This has been the case for years now, but Google was still kinda helpful. But with AI, it’s become less and less useful. More controlled. More fake. More propaganda. The list goes on.
At least we can still type in “reddit” after a search query to get some kind of answer (but who knows if Google will keep paying Reddit to make their search function impossible as methinks more and more search queries will need the reddit suffix to find any even slightly useful result).
2. Blatant liars, sociopaths, and scam artists
If a sociopath can’t make it as a lawyer or politician, you can bet your sweet arse they become enamored with marketing. Might as well leverage their lack of empathy and remorse to make a quick buck at the expense of innocent people.
And so, they flood the marketing industry: Becoming copywriters, affiliate marketers, and agency owners. They promise to deliver you the world and then some—and when they don’t, they ghost you. A coward’s way to rob someone.
Or worse:
They lie about their family getting cancer to tug on your emotional strings to shill their service that overpromises and underdelivers.
(Much better, long-term, to underpromise and overdeliver.)
3. Big Pharma
Much like McDonald’s isn’t in the food business, they’re in the real estate business… Big Pharma ain’t in the health business, they’re in the manipulation and propaganda business.
This is the quiet part out loud about why all of their ads are literal carbon copies of themselves: They don’t create these ads to be the most persuasive to convince their potential customers that their latest drug might help them, they create them factory farm style: Pumping them out en masse, no matter the drug or the side effects. And they don’t do it to be persuasive, but to be the biggest spender on cable and digital television so they can control what gets said.
4. IBM Watson for Oncology
Related to Big Pharma (and I suppose the AI stuff I mentioned above too) is IBM Watson for Oncology.
You probably forget this scam. But it was the first real introduction the public had to AI. IBM Watson for Oncology was ruined because of marketers (though, it probably would’ve been ruined anyway because the eastern, holistic approach to cancer is probably more correct than the western, siloed system).
When promoting IBM Watson for Oncology, marketers ratcheted up the hype to absurd amounts. They basically sold this AI slop as the cure for cancer.
Add another loss to the hype up your claims column on the marketing and persuasion balance sheet.
5. Get rich quick schemes and 90% of affiliate marketing
This one’s obvious. And if you fall for get rich quick schemes, it probably says more about you than the sociopathic marketers.
6. The sheer volume of advertisements
Thanks to how digital the world is (and how easy it is to stuff in general experience-destroying ads into the—hey, real quick, before I finish this sentence, I have a word from our sponsor, Vortex 3000, the ultimate AI housecleaner. Hate thinking or doing anything for yourself? Fear not! The Vortex 3000 is designed to do your thinking, your cleaning, your living for you! Haaaa life has never been so easy with a Vortex 3000. “I don’t even have to get out of bed anymore. My house is clean. My brain isn’t burdened by thoughts. And it even performs any sexual favor…”—oops, sorry about that, my Vortex 3000 took over.
Jokes aside, the average person sees an insane amount of ads every day, anywhere between 4,000 and 10,000 per day, according to this article that could be lying or could be truthful. I’m a marketer. I study ads. I study persuasion. And yet, the sheer amount of ads for things that I do not want nor care about is becoming tiresome to me—a marketer!
And there are many other examples of how marketing has ruined the world.
Here’s why I bring it up:
Since I work with business owners and not marketers, I share this as a warning:
It’s never been more important to be authentic, to be yourself, to strip away the hype, and to bring your people into your world than it is today.
Just because marketing has ruined the world—and will continue to until the AI secks robots take over the world—doesn't mean that all marketing is bad.
Even if you hate marketing with a passion, you can still be a great marketer. In fact, I’d argue that the state of the marketing industry has made it easier than ever to develop a real, authentic connection with your audience.
And this real, authentic connection is the key to a thriving marketing channel, marketing asset, and business.
We are still human after all.
That means your list is human.
They’re also tired of the nonstop ads.
They’re also tired of being lied to and hoodwinked.
And that makes your job of being a persuasive human easier than ever, especially if you have a product or service that actually improves your customers lives.
Moral of the rant?
Strip away the hype. Strip away the histrionics. And realize that the best buyers are people who know, like, and trust you.
The relationship has never been more important.
And you know what?
It also gives your customers a breath of fresh air from the persistent and pulverizing advertisements that smash away at their brain cells each day.
If’n you need help doing this, hit reply, and let’s set up a quick Discovery Call to see if’n we’re a good fit.
John
Comments