BizWhizKid.com

Alright I have had enough. After Mitch’s shot at Bush’s Baked Beans terrible ad campaign (see the Mitch’s post entitled “what kind of business should you start”) I am unable to dam up my feelings any longer. Someone has to say it. I thought maybe I could sit back on this one but it has been far too long and given the current economic downturn and our great Fuhrer Mr. Obama taking control of industry I fear that my days of free speech may be coming to an end. So I apologize in advance for all of you that I offend, but I must release this truth once and for all before it is too late. Ladies and gentlemen, today I declare that marketing is a joke. I hope that statement turns your stomach like a hot bowl of Bush’s baked beans.

If you are studying marketing  and you read that don’t waste your time trying to argue because you won’t win. Instead, do us all a favor and go change your major so you can actually contribute to society. Marketing and advertising have become a joke and so is your future if you want to pursue a career in either field. Remember, bizwhizkid.com promotes business entrepreneurs not incompetent, lazy morons that cannot handle quantitative reasoning or conceptualization in any other field.

Of course I do not mean that you can’t get a job in advertising. There will always be jobs and there will always be opportunities to succeed. Marketing is so important in the process of exchange and within the economy in general. Marketing promotes efficiency, consumer loyalty, competition and product differentiation. All of these things are necessary for a fully functional and healthy free market economy and they are provided by marketing and advertising. So why is marketing a joke?

Marketing is a joke because it has turned into a rent seeking activity. For the sake of your time and mine I will not write down my proof of this. However, there is a list of 10 fortune 500 companies whose marketing budget exceeds the annual budget and earnings of several other famed companies. What is wrong with this? A marketing budget so large is produced by a mini bureaucratic establishment found within the walls of an entrepreneurial establishment. The problem with this is that you are mixing profit maximizers with budget maximizers and that means that entrepreneurial profit seekers are weighed down by bureaucratic rent seekers that could not achieve success anywhere else.

These phony bologna bureaucrats are the reason that more attention is placed on the advertisement than on the actual product. When attention is taken away from the product and placed on the advertisement I have to wonder two things. First, how good is the actual product? Second, why am I supposed to buy this particular product. Take GM for example, they will file for bankruptcy by the end of the week most likely (by the way watch for their stock to plummet before the news of bankruptcy and then watch it almost double after the news has settled, if you buy and sell stock and you like a lot of risk join me and try to double your position, I am all in) and their marketing and advertising budget is nearly twice that of their closest competitors. Yet GM is broke and they are nearly bankrupt…hmm.

GM is just one example but I could seriously write a book on the correlation between weak companies and large marketing budgets (Coca-Cola and Pepsi are what we call outliers in this study even though their ads suck). Instead of making you read to much, I just want to let you know that marketing and advertising are ruining some companies and saving some as well. However, the general consensus in the mind of Mostowski is that Marketing is a joke, for the most part.

I have seen those kids that go into marketing and it really is pitiful. The marketing major is kind of like that last team created in pee-wee baseball for all of the kids that did not get picked by any coaches, or all of the kids that never play put onto one team. Give me a break and actually do something with your life. Needless to say when companies draft these kids they go bankrupt or see a serious downturn in their performance.

The correlation is strong but not strong enough to suggest causation. However I have reason to believe  that large marketing departments cause a negative downturn in many companies performance. They act as a leech, slowly sucking away profits and revenue to cover their costs. Do me a favor all of you entrepreneurs and beware of the rent-seeking marketing major. They are out there and they are hungry for your cash flow. Remember this though, some leeches are used for medicinal purposes and the most wise will always recognize a need for their service. Be smart with your company. Keep the vision. Evaluate your costs constantly. Don’t be afraid to dismiss a service. Never let anyone tell you that you absolutely “need” something. You are smart enough to know your needs…maybe.