Individual Liberty — Individual Responsibility 

Marketing strategies

I'm a software developer by profession, but the company I work for does marketing services. Sometimes, I find the things that I'm asked to do to support a marketing campaign to be full of irony, like when I was recently asked how to work around a problem introduced in the "security" features of a particular product for a DVD full of tips and tricks for working with that product. The marketing campaign is all about improving the user experience with a major software company's flagship product. It's seems that the product prevents users from having malware run automatically when a user inserts a DVD into the drive and the person in charge of the marketing user experience needed a workaround in case the product being marketed got in the way of the desired seamless user experience. It's a tradeoff between security and ease of use, and in this case security somehow became equated with annoying the user. It seems to me that a lot of modern life works out the same way.

Dictionary.com defines marketing as "the act of buying or selling in a market", or "the total of activities involved in the transfer of goods from the producer or seller to the consumer or buyer, including advertising, shipping, storing, and selling". I was going to provide a Wikipedia reference to their article on Marketing Strategy, but typical of Wikipedia articles, there's a whole lot of caveats, including the lack of citations and so forth, so if you're interested in what they have to say about it, you'll have to do the search yourself. Who knows how much manipulation of the content has gone on there and with what agenda. The main bit about marketing I was trying to reach though is the "advertising" bit. The Investopedia Commentary on the dictionary.com page linked above says

Many people believe that marketing is just about advertising or sales. However, marketing is everything a company does to acquire customers and maintain a relationship with them. Even the small tasks like writing thank-you letters, playing golf with a prospective client, returning calls promptly and meeting with a past client for coffee can be thought of as marketing. The ultimate goal of marketing is to match a company's products and services to the people who need and want them, thereby ensure profitability

That's a nice spin to put on the concept I suppose. There's a whole lot of spin involved in marketing as I see it. Yes, you want to put your product where potential customers can see it. You want as many leads as possible. You want to develop good customer relationships. The ultimate goal of marketing isn't really, as Investopedia's commentary implies, "to match a company's products and services to the people who need and want them". That's just the spin on the ultimate goal. The true ultimate goal of marketing is to "thereby ensure profitability". It seems to me that some marketing is going on at Investopedia on behalf of marketers. In any case it seems to me that marketing is all about convincing someone to buy, and to continue to buy, whatever it is that you're selling.

There are currently two major political parties in the United States, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, and both of them are heavily into marketing, not for mere profit, but for power. I'd have to say that they're both pretty good at marketing, because the consumers in their market (the voters) keep buying their product every few years. Sadly both parties are only concentrating on the advertising and sales aspect of marketing. There's very little in the way of customer service. Thank you letters come in the form of tax bills. When a politician plays golf or goes bowling, it's not with voters in mind — it's the gifts that lobbyists bring to the course. Returning calls promptly? Fat chance. When they respond to your mail it's usually a pat response or a form letter —

Dear <insert name of potential voter here>,

Thank you for contacting <Representative | Senator> <insert professional politician's name here> about your concerns regarding <insert issue here>. Please be aware that <Representative | Senator> <insert professional politician's name here> is also concerned about <insert issue here>, but that this is a very complex subject requiring careful analysis.

Sincerely

<Representative | Senator> <insert professional politician's name here>

<rubber signature stamp>

P.S. Please consider a donation to <Representative | Senator> <insert professional politician's name here>

Our politicians pay lip service to the voter's wants and interests. They watch polling data carefully, and then do what they damned well please anyway. The Constitution and the limits it places upon our federal government mean little to them, but of course their advertising is all about how concerned they are for the public well being.

The two parties are little different here, and it's a shame. I recently participated in a poll regarding my political beliefs. It's a real shame, but questions about integrity, a return to Constitutional governance and the like weren't included. Instead it was all about marketing slogans and the promises of politicians — promises none of them can or will, or for that matter in most cases even should keep.

I'm a dissatisfied customer. Unfortunately, nobody's selling what I want.