A perfect example that marketing is everywhere crossed my path in the Paris metroline number 8 this morning in the form of a homeless person. They are quiet common sight in the Paris Metro: homeless people. Some of them just ask for money, others have a sign saying that they are hungry and have 5 children for which they usually receive no more than 30 cents per metro compartment. For playing a nice song they usually make around 1 euro per compartment.This morning a clearly well fed guy enters the metro wishing everybody a splendid morning in a Romanian Accent with an harmonica in his hand. He starts of with an instrumental version of “la Boheme” by Charles Aznavour (probably asumed that singing this with a Romanian accent wouldn’t do well with the proud people of France) followed by a happy gypsy song in incomprehensable Romanian about how he loves the gypsylife. The guy left with a friendly goodbye and a Starbucks cup full of money.Isn’t this exactly how Marketing works? In the end there are only two reasons I can think of why the obese happy Romanian guy makes more than the hungry parent.One: There are so many people in the Paris metro claiming they have 5 children to feed and hundred thousand other reasons to need your money that people don’t know which one to donate to. (A part from this lot’s of people feel like they are being screwed over) Two: The Romanian makes them feel good, the hungry parent makes them feel bad. At that point the rational question of who needs the money most doesn’t matter anymore. Lots of marketing departments work like this nowadays, even if the product is far from what consumers need they will still buy it if it makes them feel good about themselves in any way. (ex. in the commercial they saw on TV.) For lots of readers this might not immediately make sense, but personally I think that marketing doesn’t get any more obvious than this.