The Marketing Department

Milton Glaser, in a lecture I saw at the D&AD around 2000 spoke about the 'road to hell' which was later published in Metropolis magazine. It's a series of steps, some small, some great, that would call into question the designers ethics. Some, you would think ,we're obvious. Such as "Designing a brochure for an SUV that flips over frequently in emergency conditions and is known to have killed 150 people." Others could be considered simply a product stretching the truth to jostle for position above its competitors, such as "Designing a package to look bigger on the shelf."

Glasers roadmap raises some interesting questions. Due to vary degrees of ethical transgression presented, it helps motivate designers to question, exactly where,if at all, they stand on the road to hell? In the talk, Glaser also spoke about the growing acceptability of these transgressions. Initially, you may start of with only a small infraction, but little by little, over time, they become greater and greater.

What made me think of this was what I heard this morning on the radio 4, about an upcoming episode of the show "File on 4"(8:00pm tonight), and how it would be investigating concerns about the way a bestselling antipsychotic drug was marketed. The result is that a British drug company is now being sued by more than 15,000 people in the United States over claim its bestselling antipsychotic drug caused severe weight gain, diabetes and other serious medical conditions.

Anyone who has worked for any number of years in design, shudders with revulsion when the words 'marketing department' have been used, who for the most part, are peddlers in half truths, spin and deceit

The suggestion, from the excerpt, is that there was internal research, that suggested the company did have prior knowledge of these side effects, but then chose to downplay these concerns. The show interviewed one of the companies former scientists who spoke of pressure being applied in him to make sure his research showed the drug in the best possible light.
He went as far as saying it was suggested to him that by not doing so, would be "severely limiting" to his career.

And where was this pressure being applied from?

The Marketing department.

Why was I not surprised?