Seth Godin, once again, takes a pebble of an idea and makes me stop and think about all the boulders coming down the mountain.

In his Destroying Happiness post, he suggests that marketing is about making people unhappy. Because, what happens when people are unhappy? They want to get happy. And that’s when marketers swoop in to make all our dreams come true.

Sounds like a simple concept but it’s a great way to think about marketing. It’s taking the “create a need” mantra to the next level. It’s as if marketers are Horton’s evil twin (if he had an evil twin) or whacky Christof from The Truman Show. We really are puppets on a string.

I replied to Seth’s post with a lot of spouting out about how our society has transformed from survival society to leisure playground. There’s a lot of room for marketers to create desire because we spend a lot of time doing absolutely nothing except think about ourselves, talk about ourselves, think about other people and talk about other people.

There are pockets of savvy that are developing. We’re not all sponges and, I believe, that a lot of old tried-and-true messaging that worked in the ’50s/’60s/’70s and beyond is now invisible to most consumers. Just the other day I was watching some ad for deli meat where they were singing and dancing and I thought, is this really necessary? I don’t want your meat because you’re giving me a song and dance (literally). Just tell me why it tastes good.

I’ll tell you what makes me happy: marketing that does good. Get your product out there and show me that you’re a respectable company. Tell me why I would be associated with you other than the promises of making me look or feel good. Give me substance or give me nothing.