Why I love marketing
I often hear people say that they’re passionate about marketing. But what does that really mean?
I’ll tell you what marketing means to me…
I’m fascinated by the power of persuasion. Persuasion is both an art and a science.
A science in the sense of gathering research, testing, and using practical data as a function of your alert consciousness.
Marketing is an art in the way you take all of this data and let it digest within your subconscious. You give yourself time to let ideas bubble up to the surface. Ideas that appeal to your audience, grab and hold their attention, and move them to take action.
Several prominent neuroscientists and behavioral psychologists have discovered that people make decisions from their subconscious, based on emotions. They justify those decisions with logic.
Very few marketers had more insight into what drives people on a consumer level than the legendary Bill Bernbach, founder of DDB, and an inspiration for Mad Men:
“It took millions of years for man’s instincts to develop. It will take millions more for them to even vary. It is fashionable to talk about changing man. A communicator must be concerned with unchanging man, with his obsessive drive to survive, to be admired, to succeed, to love, to take care of his own.”
“It is insight into human nature that is the key to the communicator’s skill. For whereas the writer is concerned with what he puts into his writings, the communicator is concerned with what the reader gets out of it. He therefore becomes a student of how people read or listen.”
“At the heart of an effective creative philosophy is the belief that nothing is so powerful as an insight into human nature, what compulsions drive a man, what instincts dominate his action, even though his language so often camouflages what really motivates him.”
What interests me is understanding someone’s perspective and the motivation they have to take action. I use that understanding to influence their actions in a particular way. Usually, to the benefit of my clients.
Being persuasive, the ability to make people do things, is a powerful feeling. Obviously, not against someone’s best interests but guiding them in a helpful way.
I think it stems from my childhood, as many things do that define us for the rest of our lives. From growing up as an introvert (like most creatives). Shy, scared to speak, afraid of saying the wrong thing and being judged.
I found a way to communicate with people through marketing.
It’s my vehicle for communicating and connecting with people. To show them a better path to getting the things that they desire.
Marketing is a one-to-many communication vehicle, in terms of reach. But you should always speak as if you’re talking to one person.
The ability to shape people’s ideas and beliefs is so powerful. We’re all floating through space trying to grasp onto something. Something that has meaning and gives us meaning, that makes our lives better.
As far as motivation, focusing primarily on the money-making aspect is a misguided way to start. If you can understand, move, influence, and persuade enough people, the money will come naturally.
In my experience, improving your marketing is one of the greatest things you can do to transform your business and improve people’s lives, including the lives of everyone in your organization.
The creative aspect involved in marketing is something that I find appealing. Creativity can give you an unfair advantage over a competitor that solely relies on data.
Data is important, but creativity allows you to develop new ideas to test. Without this, there is no improvement.
People have a natural desire for something new. A new life that’s different from what you already know. To be something better than what you are today. Imagining yourself embodying that new thing and striving towards that goal, is the main driver of evolution in nature.
In an age when we’re are immersed in data and analytics, marketing is still a business of great ideas.
As Bernbach put it, in a 1949 manifesto for his then-new agency (DDB):
“It may well be that creativity is the last unfair advantage we’re legally allowed to take over our competitors.”
In my opinion, this still rings true today.
I started in this industry during the dotcom boom of the 1990s, working as a creative, notably as a web designer building the first interactive websites. I worked my way into the managerial aspect of marketing at a time when there was no digital marketing director or head of digital. Creativity is still at the heart of how I work.
Creativity is great to have, but what I and other marketers do, boils down to one thing. It’s what David Ogilvy, my greatest marketing hero, expressed so succinctly:
“We sell, or else.”
Marketing is selling. And to sell you must understand, persuade, and appeal to people’s self-interests.
You’re not selling software, you’re selling ideas. These ideas need to be pushed through every channel where your audience frequents, be it social media, search, other websites, etcetera.
Pull people to your website, where you control the narrative. There, employ methods of persuasion to capture their contact information using lead magnets. So you can continue to persuade people. Get them to believe in what you can do for them.
Brands are beliefs.
Coke is not a soft drink.
It’s a belief that: We’re all in this together, so let’s take joy in that.
Lous Vuitton is not a handbag.
It’s a belief that I possess something authentically unique, that I AM authentic and unique.
It’s better to sell what people believe than to believe what you sell.
- What are you trying to make people believe about your products?
- How can you change what they believe about themselves?
That’s YOUR big idea.
Why do YOU love marketing? Share your thoughts.