In the movie The Devil's Advocate, Keanu Reeves is recruited to work at for Al Pacino. Both of them are practicing trial lawyers. Towards the end, when Pacino's character's true identity has been revealed as that of Satan incarnate, Reeves asks him regarding their chosen profession, "Why the law?"

Pacino replies, "Because the law, my boy, puts us into everything. It's the ultimate backstage pass, it's the new priesthood, baby."

In this case, the devil is wrong. (If anyone is delegated power in the legal sphere, it's the lawmakers, not the lawyers.) But I think if the devil were among us today, in a nation of free enterprise, he would be a marketer.

Marketing isn't just advertising; it encompasses much more than that. It has the potential to influence human behavior. It made a generation of people start smoking, made millions of people in Texas stop littering, and started a Internet meme against United Airlines.

The serpent in the Garden tempted Eve with an apple. Eve caved. As the story goes, the resulting windfall got us all into the mess we're in. If the devil is among us today, he's almost certainly running pyramid schemes, grifting senior citizens out of their life savings, and taking advantage of the frailties of human judgment.

If you are a marketer (and each one of is, every day), then you are responsible for the consequences of what you market. You're responsible for the products people buy and the ideas you spread. If you don't like the possible nature of those consequences, don't market them.

Unless, of course, you want to play devil's advocate and blame free will.