Musings- Social Constructs

The concept of 'marketing and advertising' is a social construct that has no meaning outside the bounds of human society. The concepts arise from the need for humans to coordinate their activities, especially in large societies. In small tribes there is not much separation between 'production', 'advertising', and things like gift giving etc.

In modern society these concepts have become so large that they are no longer a useful way of organizing resources. In fact, the different types of 'marketing' and advertising have lost most meaning in any practical sense.

There is no longer any real separation between 'marketing' and 'advertising', the two have merged into a single field that has become so large and corrupt as to be virtually meaningless.

Large advertising agencies have become very corrupt institutions that are little more than scams designed to take advantage of human weaknesses. They often use techniques like 'subliminal' ads and other forms of trickery.

They have also developed techniques to manipulate people into buying things they do not need, and even extend this idea to create 'real needs' where none existed before. This amounts essentially to the creation of artificial desires.

In the long run, this has a bad effect on human society by making people more materialistic and self-centered. This is not just my opinion based on personal experience as someone who grew up in a poor country with few consumer goods.