The mantra I have followed is, The Most Human Company Wins. No matter how you are pushed and pulled by the latest trend or scam, doing the right thing for our customers, society, and planet will be rewarded in the end.
Unfortunately, given the state of the world today, I must face the fact that my beloved field of marketing contributes to some of society’s biggest problems. Even when we do our best work, marketing is hurting the world.
It pains me to write about this. I mean, I’m part of the problem, too. But it’s time to start this conversation. We need to consider what it means to lead and sponsor ethically-sourced marketing.
Let’s break this down into four categories today:
- ADDICTION
- DIVISION
- ENERGY / ENVIRONMENT
- OPERATING WITH VALUES
1. Addiction
Back in my corporate days, I dreamed of creating a product or service so great that people would be addicted to it. I remember saying those words out loud.
Before the internet, the chance of doing that was slim, especially in B2B. We didn’t have the repetitive internet memes, challenges, or reels that could drive people down a rabbit hole.
Here’s the basic math nobody wants to talk about. Social media companies have figured out that engagement equals money. Five billion people spending over two hours a day on these platforms? That’s not accidental. That’s the entire business model. Every scroll, every like, every second you spend staring at your screen — that’s a data point being harvested to sell more targeted ads.
The platforms use artificial intelligence to study your emotions, your habits, your vulnerabilities. They’re essentially predicting human behavior at scale.
But here’s where it gets really interesting, and honestly, a bit sinister. The designers of these platforms have deliberately borrowed from the playbook of slot machines and casinos. Infinite scroll. Autoplay. Those little notifications that pop up right when you’re about to put the phone down? They’re triggering the same reward circuits that gambling does.
It’s the variable reward schedule that behavioral psychologists have understood for decades, now deployed across billions of devices.
Think about the “like” button. It’s a dopamine delivery system. You post something, and you get that little hit of validation when people engage. So you post again. And again. The platform has essentially weaponized human psychology for engagement.
How many of you optimize likes and engagement as an essential part of your career success?
It gets worse. Younger brains are exponentially more susceptible to this stuff because they’re still developing the neurological circuits for impulse control and delayed gratification. U.S. children generate more than $11 billion in advertising revenue for major social media platforms. Let that sink in. $11 billion extracted from the psychological vulnerabilities of kids who don’t yet have the brain development to resist these systems.
The platforms give lip service to parental controls and safeguards but they don’t care.
Your marketing dollars fuel the addiction machine. Digital ad dollars are hurting children.
2. Division
Let’s turn to a disorienting reality. In the social media world we all love, hate is good for business.
A Wall Street Journal investigative report revealed that Facebook knew that its core social media product makes the world more toxic and divided.
“Our algorithms exploit the human brain’s attraction to divisiveness,” read a slide from an internal presentation. “If left unchecked,” it warned, Facebook would feed users “more and more divisive content in an effort to gain user attention & increase time on the platform.”
One example: 64 percent of the growth in online extremist groups was fueled by Facebook’s own recommendation algorithms!
The company assigned a high-level team to develop a plan to combat this issue … and they did. But then Mark Zuckerberg ignored the research and the solutions.
Zuckerberg and other senior executives shelved the basic research and weakened or blocked efforts to apply its conclusions to Facebook products. In fact, the Facebook leader has publicly denied his company’s findings and recommendations.
Why?
Because he knows that hate drives conversations … which drives time on site … which drives ad revenue. In other words, hate is good for business. An internal report said that moderating hate was “anti-growth.”
That makes me sick.
And any Facebook advertiser is contributing to this toxicity. We need to take a long look in the mirror on this one.
3. Energy and Environmental Impact
Last year, I was honored to be a keynote speaker at the Belgian Association of Marketing’s annual conference, a first-class event. It was there that I met Dr. Victoria Hurth. She introduced the audience to a new way of looking at marketing and its impact on the environment. I felt ashamed that I had never really considered these realities.
Victoria Hurth
Marketing is the engine of demand. That’s our superpower and, if we’re honest, part of our environmental problem. When we stimulate desire, we stimulate production, shipping, packaging, and, too often, waste. The question isn’t whether marketing has an environmental impact, Dr Hurth said. It’s whether we’re willing to measure it and design for less.
Even the digital world impacts the environment. Programmatic ads don’t float in the cloud without consequence; every impression rides on servers and networks. Scope3’s industry analyses quantify this, reporting grams of CO2 per thousand impressions across markets. It also shows that our choices can materially change emissions.
E-commerce complicates the picture. Online shopping can beat store trips when it displaces short car journeys and consolidates freight, but the advantage vanishes with fast shipping and high return rates. A recent study found that returns are the silent polluter: industry estimates suggest U.S. returns generated about 24 million metric tons of CO2 and sent billions of pounds of goods to landfills. “Free returns” are not free to the planet.
Even our content diet matters. Streaming and online video consume serious energy at scale. While estimates vary, credible analyses put the digital sector at a whopping 3–4 percent of global emissions, reminding us that “virtual” still means physical data centers, devices, and networks.
And our use of AI adds a new chapter to the story of marketing and the environment. OpenAI wants to build out a chip network that would consume 250 gigawatts (GW) of energy by 2033. That is equivalent to a fifth of America’s entire electric generation capacity.
To put that in perspective: If OpenAI had 250 GW of capacity today, it would rank as the seventh-largest country in the world by electricity production capacity — ahead of France, South Korea, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia.
Energy prices are already rising nationwide, as is the environmental impact.
Dr. Hurth is on a mission to convince businesses to favor human sustainability over profits. Realistic? I’m not sure, but I understand why she has a sense of urgency!
4. Operating with values
In the early days of web marketing, I attended a presentation by an SEO “pioneer.” He had hired home-bound disabled people to pose as online commenters in an effort to impact his customers’ search results.
When it came time for the Q&A, I asked, “How do you live with yourself? This is so unethical!”
He responded, “It works. And if I didn’t do it, somebody else would.”
Too often, marketers opt for “what works” and turn a blind eye to the holistic impact of their actions on the world and our customers.
While hiring people to fake our content seems extreme, aren’t we doing the same thing today with AI? Half the comments left on my content are AI-generated fakes.
I learned at a recent meeting that 85% of companies use AI to generate content and that on average, their content output has increased by 45%.
To what end? To replace humans? To add to the barrage of noise we must endure to find truth? To consume vast amounts of energy and clean water to generate AI slop?
Can we keep one eye on the bottom line and one on our moral compass?
What do we do about it?
First, let me say that I am proud to be a marketer. The marketer is the creator, the innovator, the front line of our business. We can be the beacon, shining a light on the good and the worthy.
Throughout history, advertising and marketing have played a role in positive societal change and in creating demand for life-changing products.
Second, the weight of these problems does not necessarily fall on individuals. We are expected to work in a deeply flawed social media / digital environment beyond our control. Any real change would require complex systemic changes.
So what’s the point of this post?
I’m willing to bet every person reading this has had pain in their heart over the online safety of our children, the impact of global warming, and the divisions that are tearing countries and families apart.
Am I suggesting that we sell less? Quit digital advertising? Abandon profitability?
No. But at a minimum, we need to open this conversation and re-frame the marketing profession in a more holistic context. Any change begins with awareness.
I don’t have the answers. But here are a few ideas I picked up from Dr. Hurth and others.
Reframe success.
Replace metrics like engagement and impressions with impact: well-being, trust, sustainability, and authentic connection. Isn’t this why we love the Patagonia brand? It can be done.
Track “advertised emissions,” addiction time, and content energy use alongside ROI. Transparency changes behavior. Above, I cited the Scope3 research. One publisher cut average CO2 per thousand impressions by about 70% through supply-path optimization, with no revenue loss.
Design for restraint.
Use creativity to promote durability, repair, and reuse. Ask: “Does this campaign help or harm long-term human flourishing?” Re-use is a big emphasis for Gen Z shoppers. A positive trend!
Invest in ethical tech.
Support platforms and partners committed to transparency, safety, and carbon-neutral operations. The energy efficiency of most technologies (especially AI) is increasing at a breathtaking rate. Are you aware of the relative energy use of your tech stack?
Lead with humanity.
Make ethics a competitive advantage. Reward teams for doing the right thing, not just the fastest or cheapest.
“Ethically Sourced Marketing” is a new idea. Corporate culture doesn’t change without a leader who makes this a priority. If this idea catches on, it will probably be due to one person embracing the change and setting an example.
Here’s a point of inspiration.
Madewell, a German-based clothing retailer, is working to eliminate plastics, aiming to have 100% of its packaging be sustainably sourced and free of virgin plastic by the end of this year. The brand is also reducing plastic in its products by increasing its use of sustainably sourced fibers and recycled materials, such as recycled insulation and recycled nylon, and is committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2030.
I read that the CEO is even trying to eliminate plastic pens in their offices.
Can you imagine how difficult it would be to eliminate all plastic in your company? But one leader is driving this change, which shapes a company culture, which makes a difference on a vast scale.
If one company can eliminate plastic, I have hope that somebody out there can eliminate marketing and advertising that contributes to hate, polarization, addiction, and waste.
There has never been a better time to re-evaluate what we do and how we do it.
If change seems unattainable, here’s a good place to start: If you are directly or indirectly doing things that people hate, STOP IT.
Double down on what people love. Trust. Transparency. Humanity. Community. Ethics. A responsible, measurable environmental impact.
The Most Human Company Wins.
Help me start this conversation by sharing this post with your marketing and advertising friends. Thank you.
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Illustration courtesy MidJourney