The Enchanted World of Marketing

This paper studies the impact of marketing as a core component of the modern capitalist society from a philosophical standpoint. By grounding itself in the existential ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche, Plessner, Heidegger, and Husserl, and answering to the critiques of Weber, Adorno and Horkheimer, it aims to show that marketing has the power of enhancing the subject’s experience of their lives by giving them meaning and purpose. Ultimately, it will be argued that marketing is a defining by-product of the human condition of possibility expressed in a free, Enlightened world, with the many pitfalls associated with this position. Keywords: Marketing, Capitalism, Consumerism, Desire, Existentialism, Enchantment