All Marketers Are Liars

That is title of the new book by Seth Godin. Somehow, I'm still trying to figure this out, I was sent an advanced proof of the book.

What can I say, the book is true Seth. I liked it as much as Survival is Not Enough, which is still one my favorites of his.

If I had to sum up the book in a single statement, I'd use the following quote:

Just as nature abhors a vacum, so too does the human mind. Where there is a lack of information, the imagination will rush to fill a void.

~ Carl Jung

People prefer to be able to explain things, they want a logical explanation for everything that occurs. That includes all the details about the goods we purchase. If you don't provide people a story, they'll make one up - and more than likely, it won't be as good as one that you could come up.

One of my favorite stories in the book is the iPod shuffle story.

Everything happens for a reason, doesn't it? Even if you don't consciously agree with that statement, you brain sure does.

The ability to refine our superstitions is one of the brain's greatest talents. Unlike virtually any other living being (or even most computers), humans insist on finding a theory to explain what happens to them.

The New York Time recently ran an article about otherwise intelligent, rational people who were sure that the shuffle feature on their iPod was broken. The shuffle feature is supposed to randomly select songs and play them. These users knew for certain that something was wrong because their iPods appreared to keep playing certain songs over and over. Instead of being random, it appeared to these users that the iPod was favoring some songs over others.

A quick look at the song count on my iPod confirmed that this is exactly what happens - some songs are played ten times as often as others. But that's the way it's supposed to be. That's the way randomness works. Random doesn't mean perfectly even. Far from it.

These supersititious iPod owners, though, had made a decision about what their player liked (and what it didn't like). They gave the machine a personality. Whenever a particular song came up again, they made a mental note of it. "Aha! See, it does love Fatboy Slim. There he is again." Of course, they were just as quick to ignore those instances when a rarely played song came up.

Overall the book is great. True Seth - thought provoking and very entertaining.

Comments

[Aleah]

It's incredibly sad to think that we "personalize" our gadgets in that way - but look at the all the guys who name their cars or boats. In the same way we seek to alleviate our loneliness by escaping into food, shopping, alcohol, so we try to fill the void you mentioned with inanimate objects. I think it's more than "who has more stuff" now - in a way, things are worse because people are seeking to fill voids of spirit with items that will never bring them the fulfillment they seek. Kinda sucks to be a marketer right now, huh? LOL.

[Jon Strande]

Aleah, yeah, great point - I've never been one of those guys who names things, but have had some friends like that.

I'd say that we're all marketers to some extent, and with the amount of messages people are being bombarded with right now, it's just doubly important to get your message heard above all the noise - so yeah, it does kind of suck to be a marketer... if you don't know what you're doing. And by the looks/sounds of many of the messages out there, plenty of people fall in to that category. Yikes, did I just say that? ;-)

[Bob Pendragon]

Aww, Aleah. You're not a sailor or a pilot or a railroad buff are you? Systems are organic, espesically complex ones, and Mankind (okay, usually men) have been giving them human attributes (okay, usually female) since Erik the Red sailed his little boats and discovered Disneyland or one of those "land" places.

[Julian]

Aleah, I am not sure it is a bad thing to personalize our gadgets. Could it be that if something such as an ipod is personalized in some way, we would be more likely to express our thoughts about it? Therefore possibly marketing it greater by the simple method of "word of mouth".

Jon, perhaps all to often we assume that being practical and logical is more important than being creative.
"If you don't provide people a story, they'll make one up - and more than likely, it won't be as good as one that you could come up."

Let someone else's mind make up a story, it actually could be far greater than the story you come with. Have we all not written something that we thought was absolutey great an it turned out to be crap to everyone else. Like my response for example, lol. Six billion people, six billion perceptions, six billion truths. It would extremely interesting to hear how different everyone's story would be on the same subject or the same solution dont you think?

[Manny]

Today's New York Times had an excellent article "How to Do the Right Thing?" that featured Seth Godin book "All Marketers Are Liars" among several other cool business books http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/08/business/yourmoney/08shelf.html
Great reading if you have a minute to spare!

[Robert Steers]

I think that all the other comments on this post miss the point of the book, and the blog. This book is about how we can change the way we sell our goods. Tell a story, as The Wizard would say, Surprise Broca, and engage customers.

Engage the individual, Mass-customisation is the way of the future!!

[Patrick McLean]

A another wonderful example of the mind misreading data to create a story where none exists - is the full moon myth. You know, the idea that more strange things happen during a full moon or, more specifically, that during a full moon hospital emergency room's are busier.

Statistically there is no correlation between trauma and a full moon, but a full moon is very easy to recognize. Because a doctor or nurse can look up and quickly identify the full moon they remember the intersection of busy and full moon.

Perhaps if a waxing gibbous were more visually arresting?