I believe that marketing, like writing, is an activity that
requires you to bring all you are, all that you have to the table. That’s what
I love about both.
This is a difficult idea to get across quickly but I’ll give
it a shot.
If I say to a varied group of students in a basic writing
class, “Write a few paragraphs describing your favorite person,” I might expect to get
a very different essay from, say, a 20-year-old single woman born and raised in
Georgia and a 55-year-old-married man from Liberia. (I did have these two
students in one of my classes at Georgia Perimeter College.)
That makes sense, right? Two vastly different people should
produce two very different essays.
It doesn't work that way.
As an adjunct professor for 12 years I can tell you that the stories will be amazingly and disappointingly similar and trite. “My favorite person is my wife (boyfriend). She (he) is always there for me and loves me for who I am.”
As an adjunct professor for 12 years I can tell you that the stories will be amazingly and disappointingly similar and trite. “My favorite person is my wife (boyfriend). She (he) is always there for me and loves me for who I am.”
The problem? These two students didn’t bring all they are to
the job. There’s no ethnic, cultural or personal detail... nothing about family or city of
birth or life experience. Instead, they turned in what was expected, what they
heard on TV last night, what they’ve written in other classes.
It takes courage to bring all you are to the table because
if an instructor (or client) critiques the essay (or advertisement), he or she seems to be criticizing you at
a deep, personal level. Plus, most people wrongly believe that their lives are
uninteresting and unimportant. So why would you write about the details?
Same for products and brands.
I have worked with dozens of companies and hundreds of
marketing people (oops, ‘executives’). When I suggest that they say something
unique about a product, they reject the idea. Out of fear, I suppose… but also out
of the same false belief as my example students: our stuff is not really that new or
that interesting. And what if someone criticizes us… says we’re not what we
claim we are… how will we defend ourselves?
I am from Pittsburgh. A lower middle class ethnic
neighborhood of Italians and Lebanese. I spent eight years in college studying
American Culture and 20 years as a musician, 10 of those years on the road. I
love Pittsburgh sports teams, read a lot of literature and try to understand quantum
physics. When I get angry I curse enough to make a sailor blush. Through my
teen years the daily greeting among friends wasn't "Hi, how are you?", it was 'What the f, mother f?' (You
can’t make this stuff up.)
So guess what? I’m an aggressive marketer. I sometimes
‘hate’ the f—ing competition… I love assertive direct response, but after
reading great literature the copy/story has to be logical and a bit sophisticated. More often than not,
I’ll use a literary style and even break into the poetic (because I’ve studied
a lot of Modernists like Eliot and Pound). And it will all be framed in
a perverse sense of gallows humor that comes from spending 10 years 24/7 with
cynical musicians. I can cut like a knife if provoked.
That’s what I bring to the table with every ad, every
marketing piece, everytime. It’s unavoidable for me... as it should be for you.
Look, your style won’t be applicable for every job… there
are some marketing tasks you just won't do well… and your style should never
overpower the product. But you should be able to see yourself in the work… in the
insights you bring and the stories you tell… stories that come from your unique
combination of upbringing, schooling and life experiences. Otherwise, you’re
just like every other schmuck who loves his significant other because he or she is
“there for you.”
[If you can’t bring everything you are to the table, try
B2B. It takes very little to write copy or develop a campaign that basically says,
“We’re pretty good, just like our competitors.”]
Think Don Draper. He killed his superior
officer by accidentally setting him on fire. Later, when asked to come up with a tag line for
a tobacco company, Don offered: ‘Lucky Strike… It’s Toasted’. (Don’t tell me
Mad Men isn’t the funniest show on TV.)
The Prufrockian question that all marketers must ask is
this: “Do I dare disturb the universe?”
F-ing right you dare. Go Steelers.
F-ing right you dare. Go Steelers.
