Believing Marketing’s Message...

My job requires marketing. I have to promote myself in order to get work. I don’t like doing it, but I have to to live and provide for my family. Marketing has always been kind of a deceptive practice. It’s core message is, “you need this, it will make your life better”. Since the invention of TV, marketing has continually been growing into a monster of deception. With the advent of the internet, it’s taken on a new and more powerful form of deception. It based its core on feelings. Why? Because feelings are easily altered, and they are so vulnerable to deception. The biggest ploy marketers push is, “the current thing you own is inadequate, and if you buy our product you will be happy”. It teaches us to be discontent with what we have. It’s no longer “you need this product”. Now it’s in order to be happy, you have to have this product. And with the constant progress of technology, companies are catching on and designing their products to fit this concept. Some cars now have a sealed engine block. When the car breaks, you can’t fix it. You are forced to buy a new car; and fill up landfills with your old product). Products are built to last only a couple of years now, as opposed to years ago being built to last a long, long time. We have a freezer that’s over 50 years old and still running fine. The worst is with computer software. Companies force you to upgrade because technology doesn’t allow older software to work anymore, it’s incompatible. My point to all of this is modern marketing/advertising teaches us to go for the quick-fix, take short cuts, skip important steps, and throw away perfectly good, working devices due to our deceived mindset to its inadequacy. Hard work, dedication, perseverance, and integrity will never go out of style. When society tries to tell you these aren’t true, take the short cut, don’t listen. It’s better to stand for something (you know is true), because if you don’t, you’ll fall for anything. You’ll be robbed of the real joy these truths bring, by simply believing the lies of marketing.

5 Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty. Proverbs 21:5