All Marketers are Liars

Seth Godin

The New Definition of Marketing

• Marketers can no longer use commercials to tell their stories. Instead, they have to live them. Marketing has become more powerful than it has ever been before.

• There is a complete disconnect between observable reality and the lies we tell ourselves.

Worldview & Frames

• Worldview - the rules, values, beliefs, and biases that an individual consumer brings to a situation

• Frames – the words and images and interactions that reinforce a bias someone is already feeling

Worldview Affects Three Things

• Attention – determine whether she ever bothers to pay attention

• Bias – predisposition that instantly colors all the information a person sees

• Vernacular – consumers care more about how something is said as what is said– The choice of media– The tone of voice– The words that are used– The ways things smell

Georg Riedel Can a glass make a difference in how a wine tastes?

Georg Riedel Story on Wine Glasses• Can a glass make a difference in how a wine tastes?  We had a chance

to speak with Georg Riedel about his favorite subject - Wine Glasses.   • "We discovered that we can shape the size and the rim and the diameter

to the character of the individual grape and, therefore, drinking with an instrument like this enhances the enjoyment of the wine."

• So the glass doesn't actually alter the wine?• "It cannot.  We're not responsible for miracles!"• But the right glass can make a simple everyday wine taste better?• "The glass doesn't alter the wine but the right glass can make an

ordinary wine taste better.  If a simple everyday wine is made well, tastes well, it certainly can be improved and enhanced with the right shape."

• A glass can make a difference.  Try your favorite wines in different glasses - maybe even buy one special glass for comparison.  You may find a whole new taste in that familiar bottle.

• Pop the cork!

LiveStrongWordview of a

tiny audience

Trek

The Purple Cow

• Making something remarkable

• Purple Cows are rare, valuable, hard to copy, and nonsubstituable

New, Used and Rare Music

Baby EinsteinVideos useless for babies but it satisfies a real

desire for the parents

Best Buy

Angels – believe that shopping for consumer electronics is fun

Devils – paying the absolutely lowest price in the entire point

Lucky Charms100 % Whole Grain

Magically Delicious

Low –carb worldview

First movers advantage

How does the worldview of these companies differ?

Invention

Production

Marketing

Time

Value

Old Power Curve

Goal: make good stuff for cheap

Invention Storytelling

Production

New Power Curve

Quality of original idea and the story told matter a great deal

Time

Valuue

BlueNile.com

BlueNile.com

• Tiffany for the next generation• Sells identical diamonds for ½ price• Target Market – guys• Women hate• Nobody NEEDS a diamond

Republic of Tea- turned a small market into a cult, into a movement and then a trend, and finally into a mass market.

Free Prize Inside• Two characteristics of the Purple Cow

– It’s the thing about your service, your product or your organization that’s worth remarking on, something worth seeking out and buying.

– It is not about what a person needs. Instead it satisfies our wants

– The element that transcends the utility of the original idea and adds a special, unique element worth paying extra for, worth commenting on.

Three Dog

Bakery

100% natural food

People-grade ingredients

Worldview: place to drop packages and mail

Kiehl’sInteresting store décor

Staff well trainedLabels full of information

Each item lovingly displayedAnimal testing

Owned by Estee Lauder

Worldview

Off beat

Unique

Original

Story

People Notice Only the New

Segway

Porsche $80,000

VW Touareg $36,000

Why is everyone’s worldview different?

• We all want the same things in life!!!– Health– Love– Respect– Happiness– Friends

Why doesn’t everyone drive a Honda?

Why don’t we all practice the same religion?

Why is the average price paid for a wedding dress $799 – with some paying ten to twenty times that and others borrowing one for free?

Donuts = sensual = hot = loveDonuts = carbs = get fat

Exercise

Your boss charges you with introducing a new kind of salty snack food, a chip of some sort. Develop a marketing strategy.

Old Model

• Identify a target market

• Find media that reached that market

• Create some advertising and run it

• Pay slotting allowances

• Get your bags on ships (in brightly colored packages) into chip aisle

• Run some coupons

Wordview Model• Supermarket aisle full – jammed and target customer’s

ability to pay attention jammed• Identify a segment that might notice a new story, told

in a different way• Let’s choose moms that believe “Salty snacks aren’t

healthy”• Design chips made of soy not potatoes• Non-GMO, organic. Low fat & salted with sea salt for

flavor not sodium• Chips will come in a box, not a bag• Slotted in the produce department

First Impressions Start the Story

• Humans make decisions on almost no data and they then stick with those decisions regardless of information that might prove them wrong.

• Examples:– Surgeons– Speed dating

SurgeonThe decision to sue a surgeon for malpractice has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not the doctor was negligent or careless and

everything to do with………

Great Marketers Tell Stories

Stories let us lie to ourselves. It’s the story, not the good or the service you actually sell.

Ex. Organic food is better

Minivans vs. SUV’s

Minivans verses SUVs

Minivans

Durable

Cost-effective

Fuel efficient

Comfortable

SUVs

Lousy mileage

More dangerous

Creates pollution

Wear & team on roads

Take extra parking

Make people feel good

Cotton

Cotton- More toxic pesticides

- More federal subsidies

- Environmental side effects

High Tech Fabrics- Lighter

- Cooler

- Easier to care for

- Less damaging to environment

Marketers with Authenticity Thrive

The challenge is in figuring out what’s remarkable and actually making the remarkable happen

No marketing succeeds if it can’t find an audience that already wants to believe the story being told.

Toyato Prius- good gas mileage- smart key (car knows you have key)

Good Housekeeping: Sells ads for lots of money because they reach so many moms

Google Blogs: stories aimed precisely at people who want to hear them

Cold Stone Creamery

• Pay 5 to 10 times price of supermarket

• Growth through franchising

• Losing passion of founder

• Scoopers break into song for tips

Avalon Organic Botanical Therapeutic Glycerin Soap

Avalon Organic Botanical Therapeutic Glycerin Soap

• 30 times as much per wash as generic bar soap

• Hand soap as jewelry

• Souvenir of your trip

Not Story Worthy

• Very good quality• Slightly better price• Decent commodity at a decent price• Convenience• Quality brochure• Few defects• Industry standard warranty

Edgecraft• A methodical, measurable process that

allows individuals and teams to inexorably identify the soft innovations that live on the edges of what already exists.

• Go all the way to that edge – as far from the center as the consumer you are trying to reach dare you to go.