Most people only see 1-2% of what a marketing department does. The primary goal of a marketing department is to inform and present information in a clear and attractive manner. A good marketing department is also an advocate for what the consumer wants based on research and consumer feedback.
Are there bad actors in marketing. Yes. A lot. Marketing agencies are full of them. Agencies, to generalize, only care about short-term results and selling the client on the next big idea. They won’t be around or have to live with the repurcuions of their bad actions. In fact, the clients are their customer and so they don’t really care about the client’s customers at all so long as the client is paying them. They just need superficial numbers to go up to show the client. They are screwing over the client and customers are unfortunately collateral damage, but the agencies, again, don’t really have to deal with that.
A lot of the most anti-consumer tactics do not work in the long-run. Most consumers aren’t so easily tricked into buying a product today and they most certainly won’t be tricked twice. It doesn’t take too long—usually—for the snake-oil salesman to get run out of town. They just do a lot of damage while around.
Even when recognizing that there are a lot of bad actors in marketing, that's still an extremely over-optimistic perspective: at some point, tricking people becomes easier than improving the products, value propositions become muddier, and snake-oil starts to be used as the lubricant for business relationships. Only the most obvious offenders get run out of town, while most evolve and get to raise the new normal boiling point; as long as refining the snake-oil is cheaper than refining the actual products, the situation keeps getting worse.
Either the dynamics work in favor of the people, or they don't. That we continually mistake the comfort of our ships with the state of the sea is just the blessing and tragedy of our ignorance.
Are there bad actors in marketing. Yes. A lot. Marketing agencies are full of them. Agencies, to generalize, only care about short-term results and selling the client on the next big idea. They won’t be around or have to live with the repurcuions of their bad actions. In fact, the clients are their customer and so they don’t really care about the client’s customers at all so long as the client is paying them. They just need superficial numbers to go up to show the client. They are screwing over the client and customers are unfortunately collateral damage, but the agencies, again, don’t really have to deal with that.
A lot of the most anti-consumer tactics do not work in the long-run. Most consumers aren’t so easily tricked into buying a product today and they most certainly won’t be tricked twice. It doesn’t take too long—usually—for the snake-oil salesman to get run out of town. They just do a lot of damage while around.