At first glance it’s easy for a content marketer to find fault with this week’s opinion piece by Jonathan Salem Baskin, author of the provocatively titled Branding Only Works On Cattle. After all, he calls our whole practice area out on the mat in the first few sentences, referring to it as Bizarro Marketing, with mocking words like, “only content that is apparently worthless possesses value.” Certainly, we’re proud that the work we’re doing at Big Fuel is grounded in marketing science, both front-end and back. That said, there are a disturbing number of practitioners out there who may put that sour taste in the mouths of CMOs and other brand builders.
In the early days of Web shops, when it was common for digital agencies to refer to offline marketers as “dinosaurs” and try to make a case that the digital consumer is somehow a different person from the one who watches TV or drives past a billboard. I sat in on presentations where I was told (as a then-offline marketer in the late 90′s) that this new consumer was coming and that most agencies would shortly be closing their doors as the Jetsons moved into town. The new equivalent is “cutting edge” players who will tell you that product integration and measurement for branded content initiatives are the equivalent of putting a square peg in a round hole. I recently heard a social media practice leader speaking at a huge conference make a plea to her peers to refuse clients’ requests to quantify or ensure performance levels for word of mouth activities. It’s time for those who intent to survive and mainstream the branded content space to agree on standards, prove out that the brand and valuable content can coexist successfully, and cut short the critics who cast fear and doubt over what we know to be true. Be relevant and useful to consumers, and they can and will fall in love with your brand. And we can prove it.
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Let Newton Ground You in the Bizarro World Of Marketing
The Three Laws of Motion Can Also Guide Us About Engaging Consumers
Published:March 09, 2009
Well, we’re a quarter of the way into 2009, and I think it’s all but official: The marketplace has morphed into Bizarro World. Nothing works like it should, so everything is up for grabs, including the fundamentals of marketing and brand strategy. I bet people have told you recently (with straight faces, no less):
- The best way to get consumers to buy things is to avoid selling to them.
- Only content that is apparently worthless possesses any value.
- The more consumers get for free, the more money you’ll make.
Some of the most exquisite nonsense has even appeared in this magazine, suggesting that you can’t measure what’s truly worth measuring.
Now, forget for a moment that the digital experts du jour violate their own rules — they usually provide a service, valued by demand, for which you have to pay — and consider the laws of classical physics that underpin their efforts. Our lives are still guided by Isaac Newton’s three laws of motion, published in 1687. Maybe a quick recap might tell us something important about consumer marketing in the Bizarro World of 2009:
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| Jonathan Salem Baskin is the author of “Branding Only Works on Cattle” and blogs about marketing atDim Bulb. |
Newton’s first law says, “A body persists its state of rest or of uniform motion unless acted upon by an external unbalanced force.” In other words, you can’t change something unless you change it. It doesn’t matter how brilliantly you engage, converse or play to people’s inert biases or predispositions. You have to bring something new to the equation, and it must be relevant and useful enough to change the result.
The second law seems written to describe popular trends: “Force equals mass times acceleration,” or, in marketing terms, “the more people involved, the more powerful the campaign.” This doesn’t describe a friend list on Facebook, or the volume of tweets during any given 10-second span, but rather the development of true, involving and sustainable communities. Get participants to participate on stuff that matters — i.e. talk to customers first, because they have a vested interest in supporting you.
The third law is “To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” So shouldn’t the reactions to your marketing have something to do with your business proposition? If the response you’re driving for is a chuckle, or just a pass-along to another consumer, no wonder the gurus don’t want you to measure it. Given a nanosecond of time to interact with people, the best most of us can do is waste it?
I’m thinking that it makes sense to revisit these basics of physics before you approve that next reality-defying Bizarro World campaign. Let the apple hit you on the noggin first. No, not the brand. The fruit.
