All Marketers are Liars

I'm the last stop on the book tour with Seth Godin. We're talking about his new book, All Marketers are Liars. As he states in the book, marketers aren't really liars... they're just really good at telling stories that customers want to believe. Please visit each post and ask questions!

Question 1: Telling Stories
Question 2: Changing Worldviews
Question 3: More different
Question 4: Lies and Damn Lies

To catch up on previous discussions with Seth, please visit the other stops on the tour:
May 23rd - Brand Autopsy
May 24th - Hello_World
May 25th - Church of the Customer (podcast interview)
May 26th - metacool

Lies and damn lies

Last question for Seth:

So I'm the last stop of the tour... is there a question that hasn't been asked yet that you wish had been asked?

Seth replies...

I don't know how to make it clear to US citizens that every successful politician is a big-time liar, and that we, as citizens, need to get over our desire to romanticize or demonize every story that comes along. We're killing people, destroying things and making more decisions than ever before that are nothing but irrational reactions to pre-sold stories. It's one thing to come up with a clever way to market Vosges chocolates. It's quite another, I think, to effectively tell stories that hurt people.

More different

Continuing our discussion (here and here) with Seth Godin on his new book, All Marketers are Liars...

Seth, you talk about how Ford makes Jaguar, Volvo and Range Rover, and they even share parts with cars branded with the Ford name. But most people believe (or make themselves believe) the story that they are exotic cars. Car brands are usually brilliant at aligning with a customer lifestyle or worldview. So what do you think about the new GM badge that will go on the sidepanel of everything from Cadillacs, Saabs and Hummers to Chevys and Pontiacs? Seems like they're taking away the story for high-end buyers.

Seth replies...

GM should have a big DON'T sign on everything they do as a message for the rest of us. What a ridiculous idea (I hadn't heard it before).

I got a very, very angry note the other day because someone read in the  description of my book that the VW Touareg is made on the same assembly line as the Porsche Cayenne. People get upset when you tell them that they are believing a lie. But hey, someone has to do it.

If I ran GM, I'd figure out how to make the cars MORE different. Why doesn't the Saab have Swedish words on the non-essential controls? Why doesn't the Cadillac come with a better version of Onstar? Dollar for dollar, consumers spend more money on ridiculous stories for cars than anything else we buy. GM needs to learn before it's too late that they are NOT in the assembly line business. They are in the business of telling stories.

Changing Worldviews

Next question for Seth:
In the same post I mentioned earlier, I commented that the RIAA as a good example of why *not* to focus on changing customer behavior. But the RIAA is having to deal with a changing customer worldview that does not include them, and they're fighting for relevance. In your book, you talk about aligning with your customers' worldviews... but what happens in mature industries (like the RIAA, or the traditional phone industry threatened by Skype) where changing worldviews -- stories that customers want to believe -- threaten these companies' very existence? As one person commented, "being hated is better than being dead." But surely there's another option here.

Seth replies...

Well, I'm not sure it's better than being dead! Over time, worldviews change. Sometimes they change in response to consistent and diligent work by the marketer (I think, for example, that Starbucks has thrived as the worldview about what to expect from a cup of coffee has changed) and sometimes they change DESPITE that work.

In the case of the RIAA, they made a huge mistake in the wake of Napster's initial success. They needed to see, in that moment, that the people who were most likely to believe the story of "music is free" were EXACTLY the people who would make up their next generation of music buyers.

They tried to counter with a story that was patently untrue. It was a story about how the artists would suffer. The problem is that this is inauthentic. It doesn't stand up to scrutiny. It doesn't spread.

They could have told a different story. The story of Rhapsody or the new Napster. A story of you get what you pay for and a story of all you can eat. It would have meant changing their business model, but on their terms, not on the terms forced on them.

Most of the time, when you see an industry crash and burn, it's because they were arrogant and unyielding in the face of a competitive threat. That just encourages the other side and makes their story easier to tell.

Telling Stories

Welcome to the book tour for All Marketers Are Liars, with Seth Godin!

First question: I recently commented on an article that viewed the primary objective of marketing as "changing customer behavior." I think you would say (paraphrased) that the real objective of marketing is to tell a remarkable story. Seth, can you  comment on the difference here?

Seth replies...

I agree with your take... that changing consumer behavior is an end  product, but not something that you can profitably focus on (you wrote:  "You can say, 'I want to be loved.' But being loved comes naturally as a  result of being loveable, or being loving. Wishing will not get you where you want to go... but taking action and initiating a cause will  generate the desired effect.")

Here's how far I take it in my book: I believe that almost all  marketers do not have enough time or enough money to get people to  change their minds. In order to get someone to change her mind, you've  got to get her to admit that she's wrong. And people hate to admit that they're wrong. What we're seeing instead is a two step process:

1. tell stories that match beliefs that people already have. If I believe that politicians are crooks, then telling me a story about a politician being a crook is a pretty idea to sell.
2. make those stories retellable. In other words, people who believe a story are likely to tell their friends. THEY have the leverage and the time to change minds (sometimes). Not you.

So, take for example UFO abduction. There are a bunch of people pre-disposed to believe conspiracy theories, government cover-ups, deux ex machina explanations, etc. Those folks are likely to believe the UFO abduction story. The next step is that, wide-eyed, they tell their friends about what happened. They go for regression hypnosis to prove it to their friends. Slowly, the word spreads. Yes, this is a ridiculous example, but, when you think about it, so is getting people to spend more than the price of gasoline on bottled water...

Good Morning!

I recently returned from a short vacation in Hawaii and I'm still a bit jet-lagged! So I'm starting this morning a bit later than I wanted. Today I'm hosting the final stop in the book tour for Seth Godin's All Marketers are Liars. Stay tuned for a fun discussion...

Giveaways

I was recently interviewed for publication on the subject of giveaways... it was an interesting discussion so I thought I'd reproduce my responses here...

There are 3 basic giveaway strategies that I can see: short-term promotion, long-term product and industry shake-up.

Short-term promotion giveaways are what Ben and Jackie call "bite-size chunks." That's where you give away samples of a "for-sale" product in order to generate buzz, trial and referral. In a nutshell, it's sampling. So Tivo gives free recorders... Krispy Kreme gives out donuts... Typepad gives free 30-day trials... and consultants who blog (like me) give away free intellectual property. Obviously this strategy is only effective when the product or service is worth talking about, and if the promotion is executed well. Poor execution is a sure-fire way to hurt your brand.

The long-term product strategy is to make one product in your portfolio entirely free and make up your revenue elsewhere. This strategy is often quite useful in subscription or commodity industries like phone service (Skype). Give away what people take for granted and can get anywhere (and inexpensive for you to provide); find out what they value and charge for it. The strategy works because, hey, who doesn't want free stuff? And second, a customer who has more than one service from a company is much less likely to switch to a competitor. In the case of search engines like Google (giving away free storage) and Yahoo! (giving away free email and web sites), their primary revenue model is based on advertising. They get more from advertisers if they can offer more eyeballs; free stuff attracts eyeballs. Software companies use this strategy often; Adobe gives away the PDF Reader but charges for other features. Sun gives away Java. The list goes on.

The last form of giveaways is the industry shake-up. Look for an acceptable, ingrained industry revenue source that you can eliminate. A good example is NetFlix, which changed the movie-rental business by eliminating late fees. The 'giveaway' in this case is more of a benefit than a product; NetFlix is giving away time.

What can your business give away that will generate trial, buzz and purchases? What industry-accepted charges can you eliminate and turn into a competitive difference?

Hammers, cont'd

I've gotten a couple comments and emails on my last post that I want to address. The first one is,

"There seems to be a built-in assumption in your article that "blog consultants" are just implementers. "

Good blog consultants are definitely more than just implementers. They strategize and help companies figure out how blogs can best be used for their business. But given the problem of "how can group A communicate better with group B", blog consultants will generally come up with blogs as a solution. Community experts will recommend an online forum as a solution. Ditto with a wiki expert, a social networking expert, and the future experts in whatever new nifty tool comes along. Ad agencies provide strategic services, but -- what do you know -- recommend an ad campaign as a solution. Online marketing firms will recommend online strategies as a solution. Hint: if the name of the tool is in the description, then you're going to get that tool recommended as the best solution to your problem.

I'm not bashing experts. We need people out there who deeply understand the tools and how to use them. My personal role in this emerging grassroots ecosystem (and a couple others I know like Jerry Michalski) is to

• be familiar with all the tools available,
• fully understand the specific challenges that the company needs to be addressed,
• consult on big-picture culture shifts that need to happen before applying any technological solution,
• bring new ideas to the table, and 
• recommend the most appropriate tools and experts for the job.

If blogs happen to be the right solution, I'll recommend a blog consultant like InsideBlogging or Debbie Weil. If a community forum appears to be the best solution, I may recommend an expert like Jake or a vendor like Informative. Ditto for marketing… even with my agency background, I'm quite likely to tell a client to cut the ad budget and focus dollars on loyalty and referral programs. I consider myself a "tool-agnostic" strategic resource. Hey, everyone's got their niche.

Next comment is:

"Consultants like you will do well to answer questions like "How do I start testing hammers safely in my company?"

Assuming you are already familiar with all the tools available and have decided that blogs make sense for your business, your best bet is to go directly to a blog consultant. Or, for those people who participated in Brand Humanity seminars, I'm compiling the best wisdom I can find from the experts and passing it along on a monthly basis (or more frequently, depending on what's happening). And, of course, offering thoughts of my own. Within the next 30 days I'll be launching an education platform that will feature a number of gurus in this social tech space; more on that later.

And now that I've written this post, I really need to recategorize all the posts in the "weblog" category to "multiloguing." I've been procrastinating.

It's not about the hammer

I just rediscovered this post that I wrote 2 weeks ago, marked as "draft." Time to post.

------------
Two guys sit down at a bar and start talking. One says to the other, "Hey, do you know how much hammers cost, and where I can buy one?" The other guy responds, "I dunno. I hear that a lot of people have hammers these days. What do you need it for?" "Well, I'm not really sure. I just keep reading about hammers, people tell me I need a hammer, and sales of hammers are going through the roof."

Pretty silly, huh?

Johnnie's got a post on 4/17 called "Making Money on Cheap Tools." A lot of people are selling hammers -- oops, I mean blogs. Carat is selling blog starter kits to their clients.  The question that appears to be zooming through the blogosphere is how much people can charge for hammers blogs.

Smart companies shouldn't spend a penny on a blog starter kit or blog consultant. Not until they understand whether a blog is the right tool to meet their needs. Why buy a hammer when you have a plumbing problem? Better to find someone who can sell you a wrench.

A blog is a tool. So is a wiki or discussion forum.  So is a face-to-face meeting or a conference call. And I've recently seen some very interesting tools that are in beta. The core issue is this: What conversations need to be happening inside and outside of your company? What is the cost to the company if these conversations don't happen? What are the cultural and organizational issues that prevent these conversations from taking place? How can we begin implementing conversation tools to facilitate those conversations? And finally, lastly, what are the right conversation tools for your business?

Blog consultants, designers and writers are wonderful resources in the executional phase. But there's usually a lot of work to be done before it makes sense to bring them into the picture. If you're building a home, do you go hire yourself a framer? Or a roofer? No, you start with an architect, then a contractor. I don't help companies build blogs... I can refer them to a blog specialist who can. But not until I ask a bunch of questions about what purpose it needs to serve. Just because blogs have hit the big time doesn't mean they're right for every situation.  So don't worry about answering "how much" until you've answered some "who," "what" and "why"questions.