Subscribe via Email

Now Reading

Technorati Profile

« You Were a Child Prodigy | Main | Networked Media Rewires Our Minds »

Oct 07, 2004

Comments

hugh macleod

Wise words as usual, Evelyn...

PS. Im still in Paris...

johnza

This is an amazing post. There are several things going on here that strike me as so timely (not just - but also very - personally).

First the notion of cultured messages. Just look at the elections. So much is still highly tested and cultured. So we are still surrounded by such messages. Just look at the presidential campaign. But what's amazing is how truly transparent such messages become especially by contrast with those that are not.

This leads to the notion of what is actually genuine? When you actually hear people letting their guard down, either by being honestly annoyed or recognizing their own errors, they become more human and therefore more believable, more real. It's funny, I wonder what would happen if more companies just treated marketing communications more like regular interpersonal communications where empathy, candor and a bit of humility seem to go an awful long way.

johnza

also made me think of another topic which is "values" over used by people who don't mean it but really worth thinking about and trying to stick to

see http://marketingplaybook.com/2004/08/30/values.html for a bit more on this.

RichW

This is a thought-provoking post. And yes, you could say Evenlyn (and Harry) are absolutely correct. But very little changes unless there's sufficient pain or an epiphany of sorts to overcome resistance to change.

Trillions of dollars or products continue to be sold to people via advertising. Billions more via 'relationship' marketing. That's not going to end anytime soon.

Certainly brand gurus will keep promoting the beauty of Apple and other brands that concientously care about the consumer. Rightfully so. But who, at this point in time, is really threatened by Apple other than the music industry? There's not much pain being inflicted. I think you can extend that to most all of the brands currently in vogue as being "customer-centric". They've not their niches, but none are world-changing.

Thus, I suggest we need to work on the epiphany side of the coin.

What would be different about our world in 20 years' time if we made Ed deBono's "Learn to Think" program require curriculum in primary schools?

The end of lemmings, that's what would happen. And how would marketers relate to that? They'd have to treat everyone with more respect.

The only way we can change "them" is to change "us".

The comments to this entry are closed.

My Photo

February 2014

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
            1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20 21 22
23 24 25 26 27 28  
Blog powered by Typepad