Chapter 3. Why do Marketers do what they do?

Is marketing ethical?

There are many people around the world—and in the U.S. as well—who wonder how marketers can do what they do without feeling sick to their stomachs. It is the same feeling I get when I read about the tobacco companies and the managers who work for them. How can they face their children? Their spouses? Even themselves in the mirror?

My own solution has always been to believe in the product I am selling. If you can convince yourself that the product or service you are selling yields positive benefits to the customer, that it’s “good” in the sense that the customer will be better off for having bought it, then you are doing something good. A good product is by itself not enough, of course. ...

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