The Portrayal of Deception in Corporate Marketing (Term Paper Sample)

The Portrayal of Deception in Corporate Marketing
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The Art of Corporate Marketing: A Stockbroker’s Shortcuts
The film The Wolf of Wall Street by Martin Scorsese portrays the corruptible, deceptive, and unethical nature of the business world. Based on the life of a stockbroker who swindles his clients by selling them worthless shares at inflated prices and uses the ill-gotten profits to live on the fast lane (expensive cars, parties, drugs, alcohol and prostitutes), the film depicts the greed, sexual immorality and unethical practices that characterize America’s corporate sector. The film advances the idea that success in corporate marketing is not always achieved by playing by the book rules, but more often than not, through deceptive marketing tactics, misleading advertisements, and exploiting investors’/buyers’ ignorance about the stock market.
The film’s director makes use of different techniques such as dialogue, music, lighting, and close-ups to portray the deception and cunning strategies that stockbrokers employ to make sales. Dialogue is prominently employed in the party scene at Jordan’s house. Jordan’s first words to Naomi when the two are introduced are seductively tempting. He tells her, “There’s a beautiful beach out there, I could take you there” (Scorsese, 2013). This statement sounds like a typical stockbroker’s language…there is real good money out there (in the capital market), and I can help you make a tidy profit. Then he tries to sell her the idea of going jet-skiing with him. First, he asks her if she likes to jet-ski, to which she responds “no, never done it before.” Then he asks her if she has ever jet-skied in her life, and whether she has ever been on a jet-ski. She answers no to all his initial questions, in the same manner that a buyer may turn down an offer to buy shares. But when he asks if she likes champagne, she says yes. All these questions are intended to make her realize what she has been missing, and at the same time remind her that she can have it all right there and then. Jordan’s real motive, however, is having sex with her, in the same way a stockbroker’s real motive is making money from the client’s investment. The lines that Jordan uses on Naomi are similar to the script that brokers use on potential and ignorant investors. They exaggerate the value of shares, and make their victims think that they have been missing out on something big in the business world by not possessing the shares that the broker is selling.
The fact that Naomi is eventually won over by the offer of champagne illustrates how stockbrokers keep offering different enticing propositions until the client says yes. The broker makes a kill in the form of a big commission and moves on to another deal, leaving his victim with shares whose real value is far less than the purchasing price. In this regard, the film advances the idea that players in the corporate sector are like predators whose only aim is to make money through whatever means. Jordan portrays this lust for money when he accompanies a hooker to her apartment, and when she goes to change he thinks wistfully, “God, help me. How do I fuck this girl?” (Scorsese, 2013). Like the predator lion in the advertisement at the film’s opening scene, the stockbroker has his victim figured out, and he uses every trick to ensure that the victim parts with the money. If he was dealing with a potential investor and not a hooker, Jordan’s words could have been: “God, help me, how do I make this sale?” This interpretation of the film emphasizes the popular view that stockbrokers thrive on unethical practices such as aggressive marketing based on misleading advertisement of services and products, inside trading, and inflation of share prices.
Finally, after setting up his company and seeing it become famous, Jordan reveals to his stockbrokers how to allure investors. He says:
First we pitch ‘em Disney, ATT, IBM,blue chip stocks exclusively.Companies these people know.Once we’ve suckered them in, we unload the dog shit (Scorsese, 2013).
This revelation shows the evil machinations of stockbrokers; they use blue chip stock as bait to lure investors, but end up dumping worthless shares on unsuspecting clients and making a kill out of it.
The use of music helps to emphasize the aggressive marketing strategies that stock brokers employ. Jimmy Castor’s track “Hey Leroy, Your Mama’s Callin” is heard in the background in the scene where Jordan rallies his army of stock brokers to sell the Steven Madden shares without taking prisoner (Scorsese, 2013). The lyrics “Your Mama’s Callin” alludes to the persistent calls that stockbrokers make to their clients until they seal the deal. This implies that, like a lion that stalks its victim to the end, the stockbroker never lets go until, in Jordan’s words, he has “move...