I have a confession to make - I'm a liar. But I only do it because you want me to and so you can experience positive emotions. Marketing is in the business of emotion even if that means fabricating it. Let me explain.
We all know 'things' don't make us happy. Yeah, we might get some short term elation from buying that new thing but after a while the feeling fades. More often than not we question our purchases by saying "did I make the right choice? " or "damn, I spent too much on that!" or "this thing doesn't look like it does in the advertisement". Ultimately, most products and services let us down in some way and we're left feeling disappointed. Life buying things sucks and then you die.
But, there are the gaps in between considering buying something and actually having it where we experience real emotion - desire, excitement and happiness. It's often the thought and process of buying something that generates positive emotion and that's where marketing comes in. Marketing brings you the emotion we all crave even if it's for a short while because without it why would you buy something knowing you'll ultimately be disappointed? People like to be told what they want to believe and not the truth. So, why deny them?
Marketing brings happiness even if it is a lie. If marketing were a person it would be Santa Claus - You know he's not real but you're happy at just the thought of him and we lie to our kids about it. So, the next time somebody chastises advertisements and marketing for portraying an unreal depiction of reality just remember that we all actually want it. We all want to be happy.
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