Seth godin all marketers are liars

[...]... are complicit in marketing Consumers believe stories Without this belief, there is no marketing A marketer can spend plenty on promoting a product, but unless consumers are actively engaged in believing the story, nothing happens MARKETERS AREN’T REALLY LIARS I wasn’t being completely truthful with you when I named this book Marketers aren’t liars They are just storytellers It’s the consumers who are. .. Not all ignored worldviews are markets in waiting They’re either too small or too fearful or too much at the fringe But there are countless groups that are so far being ignored, mainly because conventional wisdom has always ignored them Some of these groups may be small, but they can take your story and run with it They can turn a small market into a cult, into a movement and then a trend, and finally... the truth And you are telling the truth when you live the story you are telling—when it’s authentic The best stories marketers tell turn out to be true Go to a product development meeting at Nike or sit in on a recording session at Blue Note or spend some time with Pat Robertson—none of these marketers are sitting around scheming up new plans on how to deceive the public Instead, they are living and breathing... finding a neglected worldview, framing your story in a way that this audience will focus on and going from there WHAT COLOR ARE YOUR GLASSES? We are not all the same The mass market is dead Instead we are faced with collections of individuals We may all be created equal, but our worldviews are different Long before a person is exposed to a particular marketing message, she’s already begun to tell herself... satisfies a real desire for the parents.) Aren’t these just niche markets? After all, hot sauce addicts and NASCAR fans and chowhounds are nothing but established, if small, markets It turns out that worldview thinking offers you a much bigger opportunity: the ability to find overlooked big markets by clumping together people with complementary worldviews Often a shared worldview is not an entire market,... They buy a story WANTS AND NEEDS Does it really matter that the $80,000 Porsche Cayenne and the $36,000 VW Touareg are virtually the same vehicle, made in the same factory? Or that your new laptop is not measurably faster in actual use than the one it replaced? Why do consumers pay extra for eggs marketed as being antibiotic free —when all egg-laying chickens are raised without antibiotics, even the... and the public to focus on a small child trapped in a well or on a wacky auction on eBay Some ideas spread far and wide and have a huge impact—while others, ideas even more valuable and urgent, seem to fade away If marketers could tell a better story about the really urgent stuff—taking your medicine or sending peacekeepers where they belong—we would all benefit If you care about the future of your company,... were now in demand because of commercials This was the age of the mass market, when all consumers were equal and you could sell anything to everyone The best brands told stories, but all products with decent ads made money Then it all fell apart In a heartbeat, television commercials ceased to be the one-stop shop for all marketers As consumers, we realized that we don’t trust commercials, we don’t watch... buying commercials Marketing is the story marketers tell to consumers, and then maybe, if the marketer has done a good job, the lie consumers tell themselves and their friends Those stories are no longer reserved for television commercials or junk mail They are everywhere Some marketers focus so hard on the facts of their offering that they forget to tell a story at all, and then wonder why they’ve failed... bad they are Not only are there too many choices, but as products and services have gotten more and more complex, there’s a lot of teaching for marketers to do Alas, there’s no time to do it Marketers need to teach consumers why their new product is worth the premium they need to charge, why their new formula is a breakthrough and why consumers should abandon what they’re using today There are more . happens. MARKETERS AREN’T REALLY LIARS I wasn’t being completely truthful with you when I named this book. Marketers aren’t liars. They are just storytellers. It’s the consumers who are liars. . of all, we tell stories to ourselves. Marketers are a special kind of liar. Marketers lie to consumers because consumers demand it. Marketers tell the stories, and consumers believe them. Some marketers. scrutiny. All marketers are storytellers. Only the losers are liars. HIGHLIGHTS I have no intention of telling you the truth. Instead I’m going to tell you a story. This is a story about why marketers