Freewrite 2/17

One of the things that I’m most curious about in regard to the economy is marketing. More specifically, the ethics of marketing. We all want to put our best selves forward, whether we’re a company or just a job applicant. I’ve had two interviews in the past two weeks and I realized that I definitely sugarcoat a lot of things in order to paint myself as a more fitting employee. Never to the point of outright lying, more in the lines of face-tuning on the scale of changing people’s perception of me. But is this an acceptable part of marketing, or is it more problematic than that? Would we be successful if we were completely honest with our audience? I’m not sure, but today’s reading definitely got me thinking about this. Furthermore, marketing is so reliant on the words we use, a slight change in diction can change the whole meaning. It’s also an easy way to get around claims of false advertising. “It’s not the company’s fault people took their ad the wrong way”. So where do we draw the line in how people present themselves for the sake of economic prosperity? As an aspiring novelist, this also has me thinking about my own future, considering that marketing is such a large part of getting people to read your book. Novels can be a significant time commitment, after all. In terms of marketing, I think I draw the line at bribing people for positive reviews.