Marketing: Unethical and Irrelevant?

In this year's Campaign Planning & Management course, I found myself questioning a lot of marketing theory I learned in prior courses. The journals and articles we read in class had very strong points that contradicted a lot of what I thought about marketing. Today, in seminar, I once again found myself questioning everything I had learned. We read a series of extremely controversial articles that claimed marketing to be irrelevant, unethical, and essentially useless. Was it difficult to thoroughly read these articles without wanting to argue every single claim that was made? Yes. Absolutely- after all, I have been interested in marketing since I was a high schooler..

After we read these articles that contradicted almost everything I know (or thought I knew) about marketing, we had a debate. Half of our class was assigned to defend the statement that "marketing is irrelevant and unethical", and half of the class had to argue against them. With my luck, I was put on the side that had to argue for marketing being unethical. This was an extremely difficult debate, because I am completely against this statement!

While my team gathered our supporting claims and information to back up our argument, I realized that there are probably a lot of people out there who disagree with the overall idea of being a marketer. But on the flip side, marketing is EVERYWHERE! How can the world exist without marketing? During the debate, one of our opponents mentioned how a bunch of students in our class were wearing name brand clothing. That is marketing! A cashier standing by their register greeting you, that is marketing! There was a particular statement in the Would You Want Your Daughter to Marry a Marketing Man? article that I took offense to; "...perhaps marketing men have sold everybody everything, except themselves and the significance of marketing".  That is like a stab to the heart, after being passionate about this topic for so long.

Do people question other industries this much? I know that people will always need doctors, teachers, etc- but are there other careers that people question the validity of? How can people doubt the importance of marketing if it helps consumers emotionally engage with your brand? It doesn't get much deeper than that. Think about it, as a result of seeing the Duracell Commercial where a father is in the military and records his voice (using a Duracell battery) to comfort his daughter while he is gone, people are emotionally connecting to a highly utilitarian product. In our debate today, students mentioned how for basic life necessities, marketing might not be necessary. But, marketing enhances the purchases of even basic necessities like batteries. Marketing not only helps businesses succeed, it creates value and enhances consumer experiences all the time!