12 Reasons Why Products Outweigh Promotion.

Needs

Products address what customers wants - if they don't, they die.
Promotion tries, too often, to dictate what customers need.

Discovery

Products are discovered by customers and that builds "ownership".
Promotion, in targetting customers, too often removes that potential.

Experience

Products are as much the experience of using them as what they do.
Promotion can only suggest or hype what that experience is like.

Passion

Products engender passion via tangible results and intangible satisfaction.
Promotion simply cannot do that.

Sales

Products generate repeat sales because of all of the above.
Promotion can, at best, amplify feedback.

Rationale

Products are what customers want.
Promotion is what retailers want.


None of this is to suggest that promotion is futile or indeed that you can't successfully promote a bad product in the short-run. Far from it. But promotion works best when it has something worthwhile to promote, because that very fact imbues the efforts with credence and enables the marketer to believe what they're saying.

To achieve that, you have to start by focussing on the creation of the product/service. Do so and you will find that the marketing themes will emerge almost naturally and will be more authentic and effective because of that. Fail to do so and you will find that nobody's paying attention.

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Cheerful Bottom?

Now that's what I call advertising. But does anybody look at banners - other than people in the business (like Kaylen who sent me this).

Bonus link: the website is very welcoming. Or do I mean unnerving?

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Direct Marketing.

A reminder that the obvious can be very effective.

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Yell.com - The Illiterate Directory.

I know I'm being pedantic, but it should be Marcus's not Marcus' and for a directory to repeat this error throughout their ad is shocking. As is the ad by the way. But given that they're presumably selling themselves as purveyors of accurate information, why didn't they choose a posh name that didn't end in S and avoid the issue completely?

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What Price Authenticity?

Authenticity is one of the great marketing buzzwords of the day, but walking around the preview of the Damien Hirst show made me wonder what we actually mean by that word.

This photograph (taken from the preview catalogue) shows a number of the works being created. On closer inspection, you may notice that the artist himself is not involved in the process. He makes no secret of this and I'm not here to debate whether that makes him an artist or a designer, but it raises an interesting dilemma.


This sketch and many others were exhibited in what was by far my favourite room of the preview show. It seems to me that it is clearly authentic Hirst. It's his sketching, his writing, his imagination and his signature on the front. I'd love to own it but can't afford it.

Oranges and Lemons is the piece that emerged from that sketch. It's got butterflies, manufactured diamonds, his signature (on the back) and it's clearly inspired by his imagination. I'm less sure that it's what I would think of as authentic, so I don't really want to own it and, anyway, I can't afford it either.

Received wisdom would have us believe that the more authentic something is, the more highly prized it is. But there's more to it than that. It's what the customer base determines to be authentic that actually counts and tomorrow we shall see what value is attached to authenticity. The guide price for Oranges and Lemons is £300,000 to £500,000. The guide price for the sketch is £20,000 to £30,000. Are butterflies and manufactured diamonds really that authentic?

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Recombinant Culture?

The mela is a multicultural celebration that is "all about bringing communities together and understanding different cultures." I have attended some which featured the food of many lands as well as their music and dance. Today's fitted that bill too, but its unique apogee was an attempt to bring communities together via that renowned multicultural phenomenon - the Abba tribute band.


Frida's developed a Scottish accent and Agnetha has, well, just developed. But worse than that, they just remind me that imitation is not all that flattering. The mash-ups and collaboration of web 2.0 are great if leading to improvement, but a recent return visit to the Cans Festival suggests that dilution is the more likely outcome. It takes more than effort to be original.

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Don't Make The Straight Man Funny.

So here's the second Microsoft ad in very long form and it's funnier. It has more characters and a better script, though I'm not sure what it has to do with Microsoft per se. Yet they still screw it up at the end by trying to get Bill Gates to be wacky (and I'm sure that will feature in the thirty second version). When he's the straight man here, he's funny. But, as with all marketing, when you try to suggest that something or someone is different from how we know them to be, it just gets embarrassing.

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