We find ourselves in the midst of an ethical crisis. Yes, the numbers of our global financial system seem to be in disarray; but they represent mere emblems of a much deeper issue: namely, that the values we share, the decisions we make, and the cultural patterns we so consistently reify, as a collective, are in need of a profound evolution, a leap, a total revolution. Indeed, as the recently deceased spiritual teacher and social activist Vimala Thakar said:
The cleverness of the human mind has led us to the complex, horrifying, and all-encompassing crisis that we now face. The familiar solutions, based on a limited view of what a human being is, continue to fail, to be pathetically inadequate. Yet we pour vast resources into these tired solutions and feel that if we achieve a grand enough scale, the old solutions will meet the new challenges... Do we have the vitality to go beyond narrow, one-sided views of human life and to open ourselves to totality and wholeness? The call of the hour is to move beyond the fragmentary, to awaken to total revolution.
Marketing, of course, has played no small roll in our current cultural, economic, and social predicament. The method of selling through appealing to the baser tiers of human fear and desire serves only to stagnate the cause of realizing a higher potential for humanity. As a result of marketers' often ill-motivated manipulation of the human psyche, those in our field who subscribe to such tactics have rightly earned the monikers of snake oil salesmen, con artists, and puppet masters.
The practice of "marketing"--in the way that it is defined and often applied today, at least--garners immediate mistrust, disdain, and dismissal from its intended recipients. Sure, we may laugh at a sex-driven Super Bowl ad, but just beneath our outward expression of contentment lay a deep skepticism and cynicism about the motive behind the "guys in the room" responsible for our temporary enjoyment.
And the truth is, the skepticism is warranted. To be sure, overt displays of false advertising are easy to spot and discount as blatant violations of both law and ethics. But more subtle methods of "manufacturing the consent" (to borrow a phrase from the infamous Mr. Chomsky) of a citizenry to buy products they scant need--or, worse, leave them less than they were before, physically, emotionally, morally, or spiritually--often get away with walking a continuously gray line, one that leaves its audience with only a vague sense of something being not quite right.
A total revolution, as Ms. Thakar calls it, would not in any way deepen the grooves of fragmentation that have led us to this precarious place. Rather, it would radically reorient and reorganize our collective fabric of interrelatedness, such that the world we see, hear, and feel resembles and expresses the perfection that lay beyond the separation of human ego, and the false boundaries it creates.
In a world in which marketing is not only ubiquitous, but also profoundly influential on a cultural scale, we must reevaluate the motives, tools, and perspectives that we use to sell our products, services, and ideas.
We cannot reject "marketing" as a whole--after all, we live in a profoundly interconnected marketplace, and with the democratization of technology, the opportunity to have a voice and effect change has never been more possible. Marketing, then, is now an almost universally essential skill to develop.
No, we can't reject it, but we can redefine it. We can look deeply into what marketing is, why it is the way it is, and what we can do to render it a force for good in the world.
That is the ambitious goal of Evolutionary Marketing. If you're an evolutionary, you see could be. You want to create something new, something that hasn't come before, because you're aware that you're part of an evolutionary process that is continually creative. A better, more conscious future is what motivates you. It's what gets you out of bed in the morning--that, and perhaps a good cup of coffee. As an evolutionary, you want to have an impact on culture. You see that our culture has stalled, and you want to move it forward.
You know the Internet can help you make such an impact. But you're not exactly sure how. The net is overwhelming. It becomes even more so every day. New tools, new strategies, new trends, new everything. It is a fortunate yet stupefying result of the web's capacity to democratize human innovation.
So, how can you wade through the complexity and use the web as a vehicle for creating a better future? What are the best tools to them? What are fads, and what are veritably powerful levers for change? The Evolutionary Marketer website attempts to answer those questions...
Evolutionary Marketer: The Marketing Community for Evolutionaries
Join this small but growing hub of evolutionaries who want to use marketing as a tool for creating a better future! There are many ways you can take advantage of the free membership--through reading articles and listening to interviews, taking our courses, conversing with fellow members, and meeting like-minded individuals. And, of course, if you'd like to take your education further, you can sign up for premium access and obtain in-depth training of the highest calliber.
We believe that marketing, in its most fundamental sense--that is, bringing an idea into a marketplace, a human ecosystem in which people exchange and share things that form and impact culture--is more relevant today than ever before. Actually, it is more than relevant. One of iur underlying assumptions is that marketing is essential to anyone who wants to make a positive impact on our future. In and of itself, marketing need not be seen as a regrettable necessity or as a barstardization of true depth and authenticity.
