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Are all marketer's evil?

5/2/2016

6 Comments

 
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The late comedian Bill Hicks had a great bit about how all marketers are evil scumbags that deserve to die.  He suggested that anyone in advertising and marketing are satan’s spawn that should kill themselves and rid the planet of their evil ways.

In case you haven’t seen it, you can check it out below:
It’s a really funny bit that made me laugh. I can relate with Hicks’ disdain for marketing and advertising.  The constant bombardment of advertising and marketing in our society can be overwhelming.  It seems that everywhere we turn we’re being marketed to and people are trying to sell us something everywhere we go. Whether it’s on TV, or the internet, or even the billboards we see driving down the street, we’re surrounded by advertisements.  This is why the bit worked so well.  It’s funny because there's an element of truth to it and we can all relate to it.

However, as I started contemplating the prevalence of marketing in our society and how so many people seem to have such a strong disdain for it, I couldn’t help but to think about the hypocrisy of it all.  So many people feel so strongly about the evils of marketing, yet either work directly for corporations that engage in marketing, or market their products and services themselves. It’s a bit like people who are horrified by people who hunt animals to eat, but go to the supermarket every week to on stock up on beef and poultry that other people have killed. As if somehow if you aren’t actually present when the animal is killed you’re completely innocent.

Take Bill Hicks for example.  I’m a big fan of Hicks work and admire his views on society and the evils of capitalism.  Yet, I’m pretty sure Hicks marketed his own concerts and I’m sure he had a publicist that helped him promote his shows, get booked on TV shows, schedule interviews and so on.  It reminds me of people who preach the evils of the internet and social media, on social media. It’s the pot calling the kettle black.

I can’t think of many jobs that don’t involve some form of marketing.  Even non profit organizations market themselves to get the word out. Hospitals market themselves, churches market themselves, musicians certainly have to market themselves and on and on.  Most of us engage in some form of marketing or work for companies and people that do.  Very few products and services market themselves.

Is marketing evil? Marketing by itself is just a tool.  Like any tool it can be used for good or bad.  Marketing used to increase visibility and recognition of products and services that actually help and benefit society is good.  If you created something of value, wouldn’t you want people to know about it?  If you created a beautiful song that moved people who listened to it, wouldn’t you want to find a way to share it with as many people as possible? Marketing isn’t inherently good or evil, any more than the internet or the printing press is inherently good or evil.  Marketing is just a way to persuade and inform people, nothing less, nothing more.

What is evil, are marketers that persuade people to knowingly buy products that are bad for them. Or marketers that focus solely on the almighty dollar at the expense of what’s good for society and humanity.  What’s evil are corporations that care more about money than the safety and well-being of their employees.  What’s evil are corporations that care more about the bottom line than the health of the planet and the people that live on it.  Marketing isn’t evil.  People are.

Musicians, being the sensitive and idealistic people we often are, tend to be even more susceptible to the line of thinking that “all marketers are evil”.  Take what I do with regard to my website.  I create courses and compile information that a lot of musicians find very valuable.  I spend a lot of time running my website, writing blog posts, making youtube videos, recording and editing podcasts, creating courses and so on.  Naturally, because it takes me so much time, I need to be compensated financially in order to sustain the whole endeavor and grow my business.  So I charge what I think are very fair prices for my courses and services.  I live in a society that requires money to survive in, so this strikes me as a very rational and reasonable thing to do.  Yet, still there’s a percentage of people who seem to have a problem with it.

For example, I recently created a course on How To License Songs in commercials. I created the course with singer/songwriter Cathy Heller, who has had a lot of success licensing her songs in ads and commercials. I’m really proud of the course, so I of course marketed the course to my subscribers and on my social media.  Cathy and I spent a lot of time creating the course together and so of course we wanted to see a return on our investment of time.  I think most people get this, but I still got a message from one musician who was outraged that we would actually charge money for our course.  “Why is someone making a six figure income from licensing selling a course for $37.00?” they implored.  Umm, I don’t know, maybe because they like teaching and sharing information and want to make money so that they can pay for things like rent, food, etc.

I think as a society we need to get past this black and white thinking about money that so many of us seem to have.  Making money isn’t evil.  Marketing isn’t evil.  It’s what we do with money and what we’re willing to do with marketing that determines whether or not are actions are “evil” or “good”.  Money is just a tool and a way to exchange value.  That’s it. 

I create music and courses that teach other musicians how to make money from their music.  I’m passionate about what I do and I charge money for what I do.  I sleep very well at night.
6 Comments
Keith Kehrer link
5/2/2016 09:47:49 am

Music is a tool and can be energetic, but it is up you to frame your reference if that makes sense.

Keith

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Dan
5/2/2016 11:19:50 am

Hi Aaron,

While I think most see there's nothing wrong or evil and creating value for others and making a fair profit at it (I'm a marketer myself), I may be able to relate to what it sounds like that commenter may have been trying to convey. There's just so many pitches anymore that arrive in my inbox that have some element of "doing this has made me millions!!" and so then I'm only naturally thinking, "wow, that's great, but if it had made me millions, I'd be focusing all my energies on doing that very thing, not spending my precious time trying to sell others on it."

There is a threshold at which this comes into play for me, of course. If someone says I'm making up to, say, a couple hundred thousand a year doing X and want to make even more so I'm teaching you how to do it so I can make some extra money on my course. I totally get that. On the other hand, if the pitch is "I'm making *millions* doing this and I want to make even more teaching you how to do it", well, at that point my BS meter goes off. I'm then thinking "wow, if I was making millions, I'd be spending more of my very limited and precious time left on this Earth with those I love...if this person really still needs to make even more money at that point, they must be suffering from pure greed and should to be pitied."

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Dan
5/2/2016 11:24:22 am

So just to clarify, yeah, I'm with you man on your course. I'm just saying for those claiming to be making "millions" doing X, I'm always surprised they are not either doing more of X or, preferably, just spending more time with their loved ones.

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Aaron Davison
5/2/2016 02:12:21 pm

Absolutely, I'm with you. I'm very suspicious of a lot of those types of marketers myself. I think you really have to evaluate offers on a case by case basis and make sure whatever someone is teaching is something they've actually done.

Jonathan Fischer
5/2/2016 12:20:48 pm

Hi Aaron
I signed up to your mailing list because 1) I make music & 2) I want to sell that music. I am, therefore keen to learn all I can about communicating to fans and potential customers about what I make. I am very thankful for all the free information provided on your website, emails and blog. The fact that you are willing to offer information for free outside your paid for courses I interpret as meaning that you care about more than money. At the moment I cannot afford to sign up for one of your courses, but I wanted to write and thank you for all the gratis information that you so kindly provide.
When I read about your course with Cathy Heller I did have a "wtf! Someone who earns six figures from music in commercials is charging for the course" moment. :-D I would say that my reaction probably stemmed from my frustration at being in the "80% of the effort, 20% of the earnings" stage of my game and having stayed in the studio for a wee bit too long!
I returned to re read the marketing information that you provided and followed the links to the various industry magazines that contained interviews with Cathy. I would say that a careful reading of those materials yielded the key points of how to achieve a measure of success: 1)Work hard, 2) Stay positive and friendly and 3) be nice to people and maintain those friendships. That is not say that there would not be even more valuable information in the course, but I wanted to share my reactions to the marketing (and my subsequent actions) as a way of saying that - whatever opinion a person has about your actions, way of doing business, marketing style etc etc, in the end has very little to do with what you do and more to do with the content of their mind and how they are projecting that contents outwards. Please carry on and stick to your guns.
Anyway, since I need to sleep and have a tendency towards digital (fingers, not 1's and 0's) prolificacy, I will sign off

All the best

Jonathan

Reply
Aaron Davison
5/2/2016 02:16:07 pm

Hi Jonathan,
Thanks for your feedback. There's definitely a lot more in the course than those three points, although those are very good ones indeed!

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