What is the point of marketing?

What is the point of marketing?

That sounds like a silly question, but I'm serious. What is the point of marketing? You might say "well that's obvious. The point of marketing is to sell products" and you would be partially correct You might think "marketing is how companies tell people about the products they make" and this is part of the story, but not the whole enchilada.

The real purpose of marketing is to separate emotions about products from the actual utility they provide.

Think about that for a second.

But wait...

Aren't most of the ads you see trying to create a feeling rather than give a holistic picture of what the product can actually do?  Every once and a while you see one that explains something, but for the most part the goal is to pique your interest by what they DON'T tell you and by evoking an emotional reaction. I often wonder why we don't look past these tricks and see the real motive.

I must say, I'm a bit biased being something of a pragmatist. For me, things are about function above all. I realize not everyone looks at the world this way, but for me this makes most of the ad and marketing realm feel squishy and sneaky. I never quite feel like I can trust what I'm hearing or what I'm seeing. We are not exactly talking about an industry with a track record of honesty. Most ads I see make me ask "what are they really trying to get out of this?"

"IT'S A TRAP!!"

Like we said before, the real motive is to separate feelings about a product from the function of a product. Put simply, marketing's goal is to make what should be a need-based or value-based decision and make it an emotional decision. With a good marketing campaign, you can easily cover up any shortcomings with the actual product. They have also come to find out that influencing emotions is much easier than improving the product. This makes the equation pretty scary for consumers.

This creates a world in where quality and value of a product have less influence on a purchase than does the impact of the emotional context they stick it in. For instance, let's say Starbuck coffee is average (IMHO). There is nothing special about their product yet they have grown to dominate the coffee market. How is this? Why aren't the places with better coffee winning? While there are a huge number of factors that come into play, marketing is a huge one.

We are talking about a business that has been able to use billions of dollars and a complex understanding of how our minds work to engineer emotional responses to their brand. All the sudden you have people selecting inferior products (often for more money) and ignoring products that offer a better value or would better meet their needs. Doesn't that seem irrational? It should. once a brand hits this certain "critical mass", the consumers stop really "choosing" because that brand has created an addict of sorts.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Wait..."

With that in mind, I want to know why we don't have a better way to regulate the impact of marketing. It's great for businesses to be able to promote their good or service, but what happens when they get beyond promotion and into the realm of having consumers hooked or psychologically stuck? Shouldn't there be a way to help keep the balance of power when it comes to branding? How do we keep some semblance of consumer choice and decision making power when brands have such a dramatic ability to influence our behavior through driving emotions?

I will leave you with this final thought and I would love to hear opinions.

If the goal of marketing is to get us to make less rational decisions, why don't we change it?

Thanks for reading!

Chris