For a long while there – I didn’t like marketing. Maybe I was brought up that way. Maybe it’s also just that natural dislike of being “sold”. I was distrustful of sales people. “Buyer Beware”.
But what was the real issue here? I mean, really, I did actually ‘need’ stuff in my life. And I did ‘want’ stuff in my life. And I found out about the stuff I needed and wanted because of marketing.
So, this whole dislike of marketing was internally inconsistent. I had to narrow this down to something that made sense. And as it turns out, I love being “sold” when the thing that’s being “sold” to me is exactly what I either need or want. I can’t stand being “sold” something I don’t need or want – and that’s the point of this short post. Marketing isn’t a problem. Trying to sell something to someone who doesn’t need or want it is the problem. Trying to sell something that doesn’t work – that’s a problem.
In her new book, Vanessa Fox talks about the Marketing in the Age of Google. The tag line on the book is “your online strategy IS your business strategy” [bold mine]. Vanessa used to work for Google in their webmaster division, so that’s why I decided to get this book. It’s a good read. There’s only one point I want to take from the book and emphasis here, and it’s this stuff Vanessa quotes from Geoffrey Miller:
“Marketing is not just one of the most important ideas in business. It has become the most dominant force in human culture.”
Miller defines marketing as “[a] systematic attempt to fulfill human desires by producing goods and services that people will buy. It is where the wild frontiers of human nature meet the wild powers of technology.” He goes further to describe the marketing revolution of the 1950s and 60s as a shift to understanding that a “company should produce what people desire, instead of trying to convince them to buy what the company happens to make.”
I like the new marketing. I like marketing in the Age of Google. I love the experience of looking for stuff on the web and finding webpages that are a perfect match for what I was looking for. It’s what I try and do when I develop my own products and services – and it’s what I now help my clients do as well. When you are marketed to in this way, it’s a pleasure. And it sure makes that ‘other’ type of marketing look and feel even worse.
