We marketers need to start taking responsibility for everyone else's actions. Went into bankruptcy? It must be our fault. Your husband cheated? A marketer must have made him do it. Your kid is fat? Nope, it's not your fault, dear parent. A marketer force fed her that happy meal twice daily for a year.


Did you feel the deep sarcasm and anger in my above sentences?
Yes? Good. Want to feel it too? Go read this from MSNBC.

Is Online Marketing Making Kids Obese? A new study highlights ways companies use the Web to promote unhealthy foods to youngsters and asks regulators to step in.

While I'm all for healthy eating, I do take offense as an online marketer for having to bear the burden of "making kids fat," and I've never even marketed in that industry.
Let's leave fast food behind and talk about the higher-level point I'm trying to make here. And that is that marketers are not responsible for individual's actions, despite what a journalist looking for a story/headline, or the government says.
In the end, a consumer makes the final decision based upon a marketing message, whether it's to suck down that Big Mac or buy that Xbox, they decided on their own.
Blame the marketers for everything that's wrong in the world? Nonsense.
Don't you agree?