That ain't marketing

"It's all marketing" is one of the more common phrases when referring to snake oil salesmanship. 

We disagree. That ain't marketing. Marketing is the means by which effective product matches are made with consumers. The marketing function is tasked with identifying consumer wants and needs, surveying the market to find opportunities to fill those needs, identifying price points that said products need to meet, relating the product's benefits and attributes (attributes are nice but benefits count more) in such a way as to make eligible would-be consumers aware of the product, soliciting feedback about the product's performance, and other things. 

Those other things do not include lying, hyping, or making stuff up. Those things are included in lying, hyping, or making stuff up. You can call that sleaze, you can call it BS, you can call it any number of things, but it's not marketing. A sad reality is that a lot of people tasked with the marketing function employ those tactics and methods, but they aren't part and parcel of marketing. If the marketer is doing a good job, you can expect a great presentation that puts the product's best foot forward, but there is a lot of white space between "putting a product's best foot forward" and lying or exaggerating. 

Marketing and sales are too often presumed to be inherently negative or evil, which they aren't. Call us for a sales consult and you'll get the best information we have about which of our - or someone else's - products may fit what you aim to do. If you go to get a cell phone plan, the salesperson can either match you with the service that best fits your use, or the salesperson can match you with what benefits him/her the most when you buy it. I'd call the first instance "salesmanship" and the second instance "being a d-bag" or some such thing. 

Done properly, the sales and marketing functions make life better, not worse.