Here's my position, so you know where I'm coming from. Marketing's involvement in the design, delivery and promotion of goods and services, which serve only to fuel an insatiable and escalating set of wants and desires, is not a view that I believe brings about equitable and sustainable change.
Permit me to indulge you briefly by exploring a thought for a moment. If we were to sift through the often clouded goals of marketing actions we would discover that the ultimate goal of all marketing is to bring about an increase in quality of life. In macromarketing terms, we might substitute `quality of life' for the concepts' well-being, life satisfaction and happiness. Connecting this to the aforementioned thought that the ultimate goal of all marketing is to bring about an increase in quality of life suggests, whether consciously or otherwise, that we view marketing and all that it stands for as a means of achieving these desired end state goals.
Now I'm going to be provocative here and say that what is often promoted as happiness is actually `suffering' in disguise. This is so when one is merely a representation of the other. As marketers, we frequently employ the words `satisfaction' and `dissatisfaction'; so let's use these for now. Often what we think of as satisfaction is only dissatisfaction waiting to come through. Why is this? It is because in each moment we are ignorant to this potentiality. I employ the word ignorant not because I'm playing at provocation but rather because to me it seems to come closer to the point. When does ignorance arise? It arises when `contentment' in consumption is absent and `attachment' is present. Contentment can be likened to `the wise mind devoid of craving'-for things, for example. Attachment is the mind that `falsely exaggerates the positive qualities in things'. False, because these qualities seldom exist the way we perceive them to, and moreover, they don't last. What is the result?-Dissatisfaction
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