Tag / good and evil

by Nathan Coumbe

Great power. Great responsibility.

Uncle Ben said it best: “with great power comes great responsibility.” This should be the phrase by which every leader and marketer lives.

Marketing and leadership are two fields primarily focused on influence. Leaders focus their efforts on influencing what work gets done and on what companies place emphasis; marketers focus on what products get made, what gets purchased, and what changes are made in our culture.

With great influence also comes great responsibility. Leaders and marketers have in their hands the power to persuade others towards things that are either helpful or harmful.

Who gets to decide which is which? Technically, it’s the follower, the consumer, or the customer. But we are all human–we know before a customer tells us whether or not our product or idea will harm her.

If you lead others, if you sell, or if you persuade, please take your responsibility–the power you have over other people–seriously.

Don’t take advantage.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Marketing isn’t evil. You are.

Okay, so you’re not evil – I just wanted to get your attention.

Our culture is so used to being “sold to”, to being bombarded with advertisements and brand marketing that we’ve been taught to believe that marketing, trying to influence someone to do something or change something or buy something, is evil.

Marketing is a tool. Tools are not evil; they are morally neutral. Their capacity for good or for evil lies in the hands of the wielder.

Would you ever call a hammer evil? Of course not: personifying an inanimate object with morality is preposterous. If you used the hammer to bludgeon someone to death…is the hammer guilty of evil or are you? Did the hammer commit evil?

Likewise, if the hammer is used to put a nail into a wall to hang a picture for a little old lady in a retirement home, the hammer is not good, nor has it done good. The person using the hammer has used it for its intended purpose to do good.

Marketing is not evil, but people doing marketing can be. Using marketing is evil if it is used to persuade people to do bad things or to do things that cause harm to themselves or others. Using marketing for deception is wrong.

Marketing that creates beneficial change in the world is good. Persuading people to do something that helps themselves or creates better circumstances, even if they know they are being influenced by marketing, is good.

Marketing isn’t good or evil, but what and how you market might be.

Go market the right thing in the right way.

(Who determines what the right thing is? That is a discussion for another day.)

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