Monday, December 8, 2008

Seth Godin's ALL MARKETERS ARE LIARS, THE POWER OF TELLING AUTHENTIC STORIES IN A LOW TRUST WORLD


What sells a product these days? Is it price point? Is it the buyer’s need? Are product features and benefits the deciding factors for customers to buy? Seth Godin says it is none of those. Seth Godin says, it is the story.

Marketers, according to Godin, rely on the age-old tradition of story-telling to sell ideas and products to consumers. If the stories fit the consumers’ worldviews, if the stories strike them as authentic and remarkable, then chances are they’re going to buy, and you have a happy marketing story.

So, why the title? Well, the bad news is that, according to Godin, those stories are lies. The good news is that those are the lies that consumers, aka suckers, like us want to hear. Yes, we would like to think that there is detergent that will wash out last night’s revelry of red wine and oily tapas from our shirt. A consumer would want to believe that that skin whitener would make Dodong choose her over that mestiza bitch. We want to believe that hope can be purchased from Cash and Carry for 99.95.

Readers of Seth Godin know that he is a skilled marketer, and he knows how to tell his stories well. This book is no exception. Godin teaches us how to tell marketing stories that can influence consumers not just to buy, but also to go tell everyone else in their circle of influence to buy. He uses a lot of true marketing cases to illustrate his points.

In summary, Godin tells us in his usual engaging, informative manner that It’s the story and not the facts. Marketers deal with emotions, not reason. In marketing, the guy who knows the business of telling a story is the one who lives happily ever after.

0 comments: