I get MarketingSherpa’s email newsletter (a standing subscription I’ve had for a long time), and in this brave new world of blogs and the participatory culture, it’s obvious that the obvious isn’t so obvious to those who are educated, degreed, and entrenched in marketing. Anne writes about a band that releases over the internet home video of themselves dancing, and it becomes a sensation. I say it became a sensation precisely because it wasn’t cooked up fakery from some marketing lab. It succeeded because it was genuine and unscripted, not faked to appear unscripted, which, no matter how hard you try, is always detectable (and, according to the new rules, detestable). Here’s a quote from this month’s newsletter:
The lesson here — keep it real. That doesn’t mean handheld imperfect-on-purpose videocam shots we all got used to in “cool” ads in the late 90s. It means be really genuine as opposed to faux genuine.
This, however, can be incredibly difficult when you’re a marketer on a schedule with a campaign to get out (or approve). “OK, from 10-11am I have to write heartfelt copy. Then from 11-12 we’ll do a heartfelt design session.” Yeah, right.
You wind up getting slick, and your enthusiasm for whatever you’re marketing becomes strained, improbable. Which is when language like “The Leader” and “Solution” creep in as exclamation marks meant to gloss over our lack of connection with either the product and/or the marketplace.
I don’t have a solution for that, beyond take a deep breath, take a walk over to the service department, and shoot the breeze with a customer or two to get back in touch with their needs. Your campaign has to serve the customer directly, not just your deadline.
As it so happens, I do have a solution for that. It’s the same solution tried by the people she’s writing about (go read the whole thing to get the full story). Their marketing solution? NO MARKETING. If you “keep it real” you’re not marketing. Marketing is lies. People respond to what’s real, they don’t respond to lies. If you have a blog, you’re just writing about your subject matter, being yourself, being transparent, and engaging in the Conversation. That’s not marketing, and yet it’s better than any marketing dreamed up by an agency. It’s also cheap. Neither of these are things that marketing agencies want to hear. It scares them to death. They want to “do blogs,” but on their terms, which is demonstrably impossible. It is, in fact, anti-blog, and you can’t do blogs and be anti-blog at the same time.
Of course, they’re not going to believe that, but that just shows how much they don’t understand the new rules.
