Firstly, some context; I work in marketing. Now, depending on your mental age, that will either make you think I’m a marketer or a marketeer.
If you think / say / use the latter, check out this fun Disney video. You’ll like it - there are lights and singing and stuff.
OK, now the kids are taken care of, I’ve got 3 minutes to get through some adult talk that’s been on my mind for a while.
It’s about a crisis. A crisis within the marketing industry. You might even call it a ‘marketing crisis’.
Now, while I appreciate the words ‘marketing’ and ‘crisis’ should, in all realms of objective reality, be and forever remain strangers, they aren’t. Because if there’s one thing us marketing types like more than our flat whites and preso’s, it’s drama.
The ‘crisis’ we marketers are facing is one of authenticity.
The story starts some 20 years ago with Nike, who were, at least in a mainstream view, the first to elevate themselves from the functional to the aspirational. From a ‘buy our trainers - they look nice’ to a ‘our trainers can help you become the next Michael Jordan’.
In essence, what good marketers realise is that marketing isn’t really about the product, it’s about tying the product to the person and then following that thread to stitch this to what the brand facilitates, be that an experience, a connection or personal development.
For example…
The brand: Airbnb
The product: people with places to stay
The person: people needing a place to stay
But for Airbnb and its audience, the facilitation between the product and the people isn’t just a place to stay; to come to that conclusion would mean that you’re stopping too early - you’ve only considered half the product equation…
people with places to stay
The facilitated experience that Airbnb provides comes from the other half of the equation; the people. Because it’s these people that provide the real value - the understanding and connection you get from staying at their place. With Airbnb, you get to know the place you’re staying thanks to the inside info from your local host, so that you don’t have to feel like a fish out of water in a new place; rather you get to feel like you are, in fact, a local.
So, following that thread, what the brand provides in this instance is local knowledge, but what it facilitates is a chance to feel like you belong. Anywhere.
You follow me, right?
And that’s great. And I realise that as an Airbnb alumn, I’m biased, but I believe that the company has embraced this purpose so fully and so consistently that they do actually facilitate something beyond the function the product serves.
As do Apple, REI and Dove to name but a few of the more obvious ones. But now this approach of ‘facilitated marketing’ has been adopted by pretty much everyone with an Insta account, like Twinnings 'Alive in Every Drop'. Sigh.
Don’t get me wrong, I admire the ambition of brands and marketeers thinking bigger, but there’s a very real risk that through this “I’m Spartacus!” moment, we, as an industry, face widespread dilution and a complete reduction in meaning to come to the point of non-being.
But despair ye not.
For where there is crisis (even an ethereal marketing-shaped crisis), there is opportunity.
And the opportunity here is for a new breed of marketing realists. People who are brave enough to partake in the coolade, but only on a stomach full of skepticism and cynicism.
Essentially, these marketing realists will be comfortable enough in themselves to resist the urge to exaggerate to know that what they (and their brand) offer, is of sufficient value.
I guess that’s what I’m trying to say; we as an industry, as a collective, need to forget ‘perfect’ and realise that being ‘good enough’ is in fact enough.
I would ask ‘does that make sense?’, but my tutor always responds to that question with ‘does it make sense to you?’ And this does make sense to me, and that, for the purposes of this, is indeed good enough.
Oh, and welcome back marketeers, how was the video? Did you enjoy the flashing lights? How about the music?
What’s that? You’re a bit tired? OK, sure - here you go. Here’s a nice glass of steamed oat milk, so let’s get you off to your sleep pod for some micro-sleep…
Comments