Thursday, October 10, 2013

Information please; not marketing

I get the goal behind marketing.  It's the modus operandi I despise.

At a local Farmer's Market the farmer's marketing is about how healthy the produce looks. It's about the vibe of the farmer (do they care about the food they grow?)  Purchases are made based on personally verifiable experiences.

I distinguish "putting your best face forward" marketing from corporate and gullible-for-profit, follow-the-leader marketing that uses coercion, persuasion, shaming, comparing, guilt-mongering or any other fast and easy means of profit.

Wolf in sheep's clothes marketing looks like a simple person's legitimate dream: life's good, you're beautiful, here's your answer, you're in the know......It looks like nostalgia, sentimentality, community.... 

"How can I sell it?", "What do people want to hear?"
"....wearing xyz tampon will transport you to a high mountain meadow bursting with wildflowers where you and all the women who love you will be doing triple cartwheels in the dappled sun with a cool breeze blowing."  Has any milieu fallen harder and gotten buried deeper in BS than NOW?


I'm all for every person or group of people developing and communicating their authentic accomplishments with great enthusiasm.  I just ask - please do it in a way that doesn't literally suck the life blood out of other people. Grant others the freedom to decide for themselves whether they want what you offer or not. 

(Kudos to the many who are already doing this!)
"We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us"  Marshall McLuhan