Should We Ban Manipulative Marketing?

Posted by DaveJ , Open Left at 6:03 AM on July 29, 2009.

Obesity is just one example of what I call "marketing diseases."  What about marketing that hits at our self-esteem?  Makes us think we are ugly, undesirable, stupid, etc?  Is this good for us?

Another kind of marketing is aspirational.  Don't get me started about people who live fantasy lives, thinking they are starring in a James Bond or Marlboro Man movie, because of the harmful effects of unrestricted marketing on our human psychology.

Here is one more reason I think we should step in and regulate marketing and advertising.  Advertising is the science of getting our attention.  The most effective advertising gets us to stop what we are doing and pay attention to the ad.

But have you considered the extent to which such advertising is a distraction from our lives?  We have public nuisance laws that prevent people from disturbing the peace.  So what about advertising?  At what point does advertising rise to the level of attention-grabbing distraction that we have a right to take control and prohibit?  Good advertising gets our attention - and our attention is OURs.

I think we have the right to think about the things we want to think about.  A concurrent right then would be the right not to have our attention distracted -- not to have things shoved in our face.  

So suppose that we require companies to get our permission to expose their advertising to us?  Suppose we charged a fee for the right to promote products and services to us?  

So even when legitimate, there must be regulation of advertising and marketing to be sure that it is being used legitimately and that we are being fairly compensated for the use of us as a market for the products.

I hope this gets us thinking about our rights as people, vs the rights of companies to project marketing at us regardless of the effect.  

What are your thoughts?

Tagged as: marketing, ads