Is your marketing a joke?

By TJ MacDonald |

Do you know that more people are laughing at marketing than buying it?

Its true! Maybe nobody has earned a PhD for researching this yet, but there is another way of knowing. People vote with their feet! And with their mouse clicks.

YouTube, one of those self-broadcasting phenomena giving everyone a soapbox, just threw up some interesting stats on “marketing”.

I work in an Internet environment so have a professional interest in Web 2.0 developments like social networking. Naturally I like to keep up with things that are happening in my world. One of those ‘things’ is the increasing use of YouTube and similar sites by marketing experts to distribute their commercial and educational messages.

So I logged on and searched “marketing”. No surprise – I got thousands of listings. But – and it’s a big BUT – their ranking shocked me.

There on that covetted first page were icons like Seth Godin (8,763 views) and Eben Pagan, one of the hottest gurus to burst onto the entrepreneurial education scene in recent times, pulling 12,623. There was a cute video on “How to sell soap” sitting on 15,383, out-doing direct marketing maestro Dan Kennedy, sharing his knowledge and still going strong after 5186 appearances.

Sitting boldly at the top of the list with 328,096 views is a video called ‘Bill Hicks on Marketing’ – . Wow! That’s twenty times more popular than the experts I know. OK, I thought. Never heard of him but this guy has to be good. His social delivery system is cranked up and he has a lot of advocates out there who have been impressed and are sending friends and colleagues to go hear what he has to say. So I did too.

Just what is it then, that so many people have wanted to watch? Actually, nothing more than a potty-mouthed, stand-up comic advising:

If anyone here is in advertising or marketing… kill yourself!…

There is no rationalisation for what you do… You are the ruiners of all things good. You are Satan’s spawn filling the world with bile and garbage… kill yourself. (That’s the much shorter, editted version.)

OK, I admit – gratuitious expletives aside, once he got rolling his poke at marketing was clever and made me laugh. Very satirical. But also shocking. Although he was way over the top with his comments, there is no escaping the fact that he was inspired by, and pandering to, many people’s perceptions of marketing.

I’m not surprised there are people in the marketplace who question or misunderstand the motives and merits of marketing. Even some of the professionals seem to struggle with a common understanding of what it is they do. And sadly, there are ‘marketers’ who still think they are peddling snake-oil.

So what’s your take on marketing? Are people laughing or are they buying?

If you are a business owner, or an executive responsible for marketing or business development, then the ideas and discussion that will follow in these pages are especially for you.

We are moving beyond marketing and into a new way of doing business in markets that hate to be sold.

Let’s talk again soon. Until then…
Learn well, lead well, and thrive!

TJ MacDonald