But is that really a make-work job? I doubt they would pay people to do that if it doesn't make more money than it costs (or at least they believe it does.)
Most of people commenting like this ("'they' can't possibly pay for that unless it makes some kind of ROI") have not experienced business at scale.
Beyond a certain scale of business, sales and marketing management at those levels sometimes becomes very abstract, and relies as much upon suppositions as actual data. This is why brand marketing still exists, even though far more accurate and precise quantitative methods are available now.
Call center cold calling has a miserable return rate, but for some at scale businesses, it need not actually yield a measurable, tangible, positive return to justify its existence. For some businesses, simply the act of making the cold call itself is sufficient justification, because it puts the business' name "top of mind" in the public.
One of Graeber's points is that businesses engage in these activities because the management in decision-making positions at these businesses believe that if they do not engage in these activities, their competitor who does will gain a competitive edge. Most such activities are to generate some kind of constant, dim awareness of the brand name in the buying public.
I think it's more likely that you have not experienced competent marketing at scale. It is indeed carefully measured and managed according to its ROI.
Being so dismissive of brand marketing is a big hint that you might not fully understand it. Consider that even companies that are very savvy about data collection and analysis engage in brand marketing, like Google.
There are certainly lots of companies doing competent marketing at scale, and they are certainly the norm for large SV businesses. That is not in question. But it's a big world out there, and there are a shockingly larger number of big businesses in the world that do throw big, big bucks at brand-establishing marketing initiatives, with very little to no quantifiable and precise marketing-to-sales-to-close-to-per-customer-support-cost metrics. I don't see where I'm dismissing brand marketing (and especially the newer data-driven brand marketing); please point it out so I can clarify with a follow up comment. I'm laying out (to those who might not have been exposed to it) the reasoning that goes on behind seemingly nonsensical activities (like the aforementioned call centers devoted to cold calling). Very rarely in big business do completely harebrained activities last terribly long; in hindsight some activities might have been ill-advised, but over the long run most decisions are made with the best intentions and very hazy decision-making data. I'm pretty excited to see what the data-driven marketing and sales future looks like, myself.
