Marketing is brutal… no doubt about it. Either you can or you can’t… most can’t, everyone thinks they can.
In a past life I made a living as a musician, on the road playing in bars across the country. That’s brutal, too… you play a song and people either applaud or they don’t. There’s no equivocation: the audience likes you or hates you… or worse, ignores you. No way to spin their response.
In a past life I made a living as a musician, on the road playing in bars across the country. That’s brutal, too… you play a song and people either applaud or they don’t. There’s no equivocation: the audience likes you or hates you… or worse, ignores you. No way to spin their response.
As someone who makes a living as a marketer, I have come to learn that my almost 10 years on the road have stood me in good stead. An advert works or it doesn’t, and all the slick- talking, self-justification, excuse-making in the world won’t change the result.
So — a little while back I ‘took a meeting’ (I was in LA) with two very nice young men in charge of their father’s fortune. They have an idea to sell a product or two and I’m involved because I know the formulator.
During the meeting, they tell me how special their company is… right, just like everyone else. They’re a family company and they REALLY care (as if other family companies don’t give a damn). In a minute or two, my ADD kicks in and I’m lost in Supertramp's 'Gone Hollywood' ("I'm in a cheap hotel beside a Taco Bell without a hope in hell" how appropriate).
Here’s the kicker: these guys swear to me that “We have some of the best designers and creative people in the country.” This is code for, “We don’t need any help marketing our stuff.”
OK, fair enough. I get up to leave and they give me their business cards. OMG — were these atrocities the work of “the best designers in the country"??? The first card is unreadable… 6-point white text on a soft beige background… Superman and his X-ray vision would have a challenge deciphering the copy. The other gentleman’s card looked like it came from the Microsoft template library: ugly, large black text, no kerning, so the letters looked like a n e y e t e s t placed at an angle the human brain can’t comprehend.
Oh… I see, the best designers in the country, huh?… you don’t need help?… you’re marketing experts?!?
Look — just because you wrote a paper in high school doesn’t make you a writer… just because you know how to open Photoshop and resize a picture doesn’t make you a graphic artist… just because you sold $100,000 worth of product in a market that’s worth $5 BILLION doesn’t make you a marketer… it makes you a poser (a great British term).
In a moment of epiphany, I realized what the best thing was about being a musician! It’s the ability to shut up amateurs.
At just about every gig, some guy would come up and say, “I play saxophone, too.” My response? “Here’s my horn, play it… let’s hear what you’ve got.”
No one ever took me up on the offer.
I wish I could do the same when a couple of well-meaning but ill-informed guys with ugly business cards tell me they know how to market.
At just about every gig, some guy would come up and say, “I play saxophone, too.” My response? “Here’s my horn, play it… let’s hear what you’ve got.”
No one ever took me up on the offer.
I wish I could do the same when a couple of well-meaning but ill-informed guys with ugly business cards tell me they know how to market.
Really?
