How much does the marketing industry know about you? You, specifically. Sure, you've heard all the horror stories - or maybe you've lived it - in which you're thinking about Pop Tarts and suddenly you see an ad on social media for Pop Tarts. That's freaky, right? But marketing existed long before the advent of modern technology and still seemed to somehow catch the pulse of what we all wanted to consume. Or did it? Maybe the truth about marketing isn't that it is reacting to what you're seeing or hearing, rather it is shaping it, shaping you. Helping you tell stories of how your life might look if you purchased this candy, went to see that movie, or, in the case of the United States, took this prescription medication. 

Or perhaps you've seen an ad that seemed so incredibly ill-advised you wonder...how many people had to look at this ad and ignore all the blatantly problematic visuals or ad copy before it was sent out in the world? How many people thought this was a good idea? 

Hayley Grant is a VP of Strategy for VaynerMedia, one of the country's largest and most influential marketing firms. She sat down for a deep dive conversation about the realities of the marketing industry. There were no topics off the table. We discussed how marketers decide who a product or service is for, how they develop a marketing strategy for them, and how they make us want things we didn't ever think we'd want. We discussed the taboos of pharmaceutical marketing and whether the US should change tactics to match the rest of the world. And, we discussed which piece of media the marketing industry is most like. (Hint: it's not Mad Men.)

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