ALL MARKETERS ARE LIARS THE POWER OF TELLING AUTHENTIC STORIES IN A LOW-TRUST WORLD Seth Godin P O RT F O L I O ALL MARKETERS ARE LIARS ALL MARKETERS ARE LIARS THE POWER OF TELLING AUTHENTIC STORIES IN A LOW-TRUST WORLD Seth Godin P O RT F O L I O PORTFOLIO Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England This edition published in 2009 by Portfolio, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc Copyright © Do You Zoom, Inc., 2005, 2009 All rights reserved Photograph reproduced by permission of The Longaberger Company The Longaberger Company’s Home Office Building in Newark, Ohio, is a trademark of The Longaberger Company Copyright 1997 The Longaberger Company ISBN: 1-101179732 Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrightable materials Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication Further, publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or thirdparty Web sites or their content Don’t just tell me the facts, tell me a story instead Be remarkable! Be consistent! Be authentic! Tell your story to people who are inclined to believe it Marketing is powerful Use it wisely Live the lie CONTENTS PREFACE HIGHLIGHTS In the Beginning, There Was the Story You’re a Liar Georg Riedel Is a Liar Some of My Best Friends Are Liars Wants and Needs Can Pumas Really Change Your Life? Telling a Great Story Telling a Story Badly: The Plight of the Telemarketer Telling a Story Well: Kiehl’s Since 1851 The Accidental Marketer Marketers Aren’t Really Liars This Appears to Be a Book About Lying One Last Thing Before We Get Going: Know Your Power xv 2 10 14 15 18 18 19 20 viii | CONTENTS GOT MARKETING? 22 Does Marketing Matter? Before, During and After the Golden Age When You Know the Secret, Things Look Different How Marketing Works (When It Works) You’re Not in Charge (People Can’t Listen) You’re Not in Charge (You Can’t Control the Conversation) You’re Not in Charge (It Won’t Stay Stable!) Make Stuff Up: The New Power Curve 22 24 27 28 29 31 32 33 STEP 1: THEIR WORLDVIEW AND FRAMES GOT THERE BEFORE 38 YOU DID We All Want the Same Things Two Definitions and a Strategy All Squirrels Want Nuts They Say There’s No Accounting for Taste What Color Are Your Glasses? Who We Are Affects What We See Glimpses of a Worldview 1,000 Worldviews The Power of Frames Getting in the Door “None of the Above” 38 39 41 42 44 45 46 47 50 51 52 206 | ALL MARKETERS ARE LIARS Create mechanisms that allow individuals who believe your story to share it with their friends and colleagues The way your story will spread is not because you directly market to people with a worldview alien to your story It will spread when one individual interacts with another and uses the power of the personal interaction to spread your story What are the shortcuts your fans can use to tell the story to their friends? How can you help them frame that story? If you can’t this with the product or service you cur rently offer, change it! How can you radically change your product or service so that the story is natural and obvious and easy to tell? If you’re not growing, the problem is most likely in your product and not your advertising Have the guts to change it so that it can evolve into what it deserves to be What’s the value of your permission asset? S O , W H AT T O D O N O W ? | 207 Finally, understand that the people with a worldview that gives them a bias to listen to you and to believe you are the most valuable consumers on earth Get permission from them to follow up, then get to work finding new products for the people who want to buy them ACKNOWLEDGMENTS One last story: I’m very fortunate As an iconoclast who can be pretty headstrong, I’ve managed to find a group of insanely smart people who are willing to tell me when I’m wrong My problem is that I ignore them all too often Thanks to Megan Casey, Adrian Zackheim, Will Weisser, Joseph Perez and Allison Sweet at Portfolio To Lisa DiMona and Karen Watts and Robin Dellabough at Lark And to Amit Gupta from changethis I learned a lot about storytelling in the real world from Sarah Crary Cohen, Carol King, Marcus Jadotte, Dave Balter, Sripraphai Tipmanee, Elizabeth Talerman, Jerry Shereshewsky, Vivian Cheng and Jacqueline No vogratz Tom Peters even gets his own sentence, because he earned it This book was inspired by George Lakoff and Malcolm Gladwell Red Maxwell, Jonathan Sackner-Bernstein, Jerry Col 210 | ACKNOWLEDGMENTS onna, Tom Cohen, Chris Meyer, Lynn Gordon, David Evenchik, Patti Jo Wilson, Jen Clavier, Charlotte Okie, Richard Primason, Alan Webber, Bill Taylor, Stuart Krichevsky, Michael Cader, Barbara Johnson, Joanne Kates, Marilyn Wishnie, and Drew Dusabout are all-stars (and good friends) who have let me focus on my writ ing and inspired me to push my work to a different level Every one of these people is a master storyteller—and an authentic one This book is dedicated to Alex, Mo and my dad And of course to Helene, for making the best stories come true INDEX Acumen Fund, 195 – 98 Ailes, Roger, 169, 171 Albright-Knox Art Gallery, 183 Allen, Robert, 126 Allstate, 31 Amazon, 59, 93 American Customer Satisfaction Index, 113 Amnesty International, 182 Amy’s, 114 Anderson, Brad, 55 Anheuser-Busch, 36 Armstrong, Lance, 157 Art Basel Miami Beach, 70 Art of the Start (Kawasaki), 181 Ashcroft, John, 100 Aston Martin, 141 Atkins diet, 56 – 57 Avalon Organic Botanicals, 168 – 69 Baby Einstein, 48 Balter, Dave, 181 Banquet, 104 – Becks Light, 110 Beech-Nut, 126 Ben Bridge Jewelry, 177 Best Buy, 54 – 55 Blink (Gladwell), 87 Blue Nile, 176 – 77 Blue Note, 20 Bridge, Jonathan, 177 214 | INDEX Broadview, 156 Dell, 31, 163 Bush, George W., 99, 152– 53 Dodge Viper, 103 Do Not Call Registry, 15 Cadillac, 121 Dragonfly, 60 Campagnolo, 157 Duyser, Diana, 81 Cappellazzo, Amy 70 DVD, 62 Carlin, George, 61 – 62 Carter, Jimmy, 52 eBay, 81, 189 Celestial Seasonings, 49 Eldon Beck, 193 Centers for Disease Control, Equinox, 144 76 Changethis.com, 181 Fanning, Shawn, 43 Cheng, Vivian, 209 Fast Company, 45 chowhound.com, 166 Ford Motors, 136, 141 Christie’s, 70 Fortune 500, 156 Cisco, 156 Fox News, 169 – 71 Clinton, Hillary, 100 Free Prize Inside!, 189, 202 Coke, 131, 154 Fulbright, J William, 133 Cold Stone Creamery, 144–45 ConAgra, 105 – Garland, Judy, 76 Consumer Reports, 165 General Mills, 57 Costco, 142 Gilder, George, 125 – 26 Crock-Pots, 105 Gladwell, Malcolm, 87, 209 Crossing the Chasm (Moore), Glaeser, Edward L, 161 53, 63 Godin, Seth, 111 – 12, 200 C Turner Joy, 133 Gogurt, 57 Good Housekeeping, 191 Dailycandy.com, 72 Goodyear, 178 – 79 Dean, Howard, 52 – 54 Google, 124 – 25, 191 I N D E X | 215 Gore, Al, 77 Gouliard, Jay, 57 – 58 Gourmet, Hanson, John 105 Harvard, 112 Hastings Farmers’ Market, 116 Holt, Pat, 61 Honda, 141 HotMail, 189 Huba, Jackie, 203 Hudson River, 131 IBM, 156 Ingersoll-Rand, 102 Interstate Bakeries, 57 Intrawest, 193 – 94 iPod, 43, 80 – 81 Jackson Diner, 166 – 68 Jaguar, 36, 141 Jobs, Steven, 43 Johnson, Lyndon, 133 – 34 Kawasaki, Guy, 181, 209 Kerry, John, 31, 99, 152 – 53 Kiehl’s, 15 – 17 Kirin, 36 Krispy Kreme, 40 – 41 Lakoff, George, 40, 209 Lauren, Ralph, 110 Law, Andy, 203 Leff, Jim, 166 Lennox, Dave, 119 – 20 Lenska, Rula, 11 Limewire, 177 Lipton Tea, 49, 190 Little Miss Match, 164 LiveStrong, 13 Longaberger Corporation, 10 – 11 Lotus Elise, 141 – 42 Lucky Cheng’s, 27 Lunn Poly, 175 McConnell, Ben, 203 McDonald’s, 128 Macintosh, 43 McLaughlin, Richard, 183 McNamara, Robert, 134 Maddox, 133 Maislin, Joanne, 194 Manners, Tim, 178 Marshall, Joshua Micah, 191 Masa, 110 Matthews, Thomas, 216 | INDEX Maxwell, Red, 39 Maytag, 31 Mercedes, 120 – 21 Michelin, 179 Mini Cooper, 31 Mitchell-Innes, Lucy, 71 Mitsubishi Montero, 165 Moore, Geoffrey, 53, 63, 202 Mount Tremblant, 194 Murdoch, Rupert, 169 Napster, 177, 189 Nestlé 121 – 23 Nike, 20, 36, 163, 188 Niman Ranch, 199 Nissan Armada, 165 Nixon, Richard, 83 Norman, Donald, 203 Novogratz, Jacqueline, 196, 209 Number 17, Obermann, Emily, Organic Style, 113 – 14, 180 P2P, 177 Parker, Robert, Jr., Pentagon Papers, 134 Pepsi, 83, 131 Permission Marketing, 201 Peters, Tom, 181, 202, 209 Philip Morris, 128 Phish, 11 Pirate’s Booty, 114 Polo, 110 Porsche Cayenne, 7, 45 Positioning (Trout and Ries), 31, 154, 202 presidential election 2004, 42 – 43, 99, 152 – 53 Prudhomme, Paul, 131 Puma, – 10 Purple Cow, 127, 158, 189, 202 RBC, 182 Recording Industries Association, 177 Republic of Tea, 49, 202 Riedel, Georg, – 5, 118, 125 Ries, Al, 31 Riolo, Arthur, Robertson, Pat, 20 Rosenzweig, Bill, 202 Salesforce.com, 71 – 72, 102 Samuels, Mo, 111 – 12 Santeria, 136 I N D E X | 217 Scharf, Doron, 167 Scharffen Berger, 114 Schwimmer, Dr Joshua, 191 Scott, James, 203 Seibel, 102 – Up, 154 Uncola, 154 Siegler, Bonnie, – Silicon Valley, 44 Silk, 147 Sirius Satellite Radio, 172 – 73 SlickDeals.net, 56 Soy Luck Club, 142 – 43 Starbucks, 45, 87, 143, 144, 192, 201 Stern, Howard, 174 – 75 St Pauli Girl, 110 SUVs, 93, 97, 130, 165, 166 Talerman, Elizabeth, 32, 209 Tazo, 49 Tea Forte, 190 Techbargains.com, 56 Tetley Tea, 49, 190 Tiffany, 176 Tom’s of Maine, 67 Totino’s, 163 Toyota, 120, 142 Prius, 12, 142 Travelocity, 175 Trek, 157 Trout, Jack, 31, 202 Tweedy, Jeff, 178 Twinkies, 57, 127 UnCola See – Up Underhill, Paco, 202 Union Square Café, 84 Unleashing the Ideavirus, 201 USA Today, 136 Vadon, Mark, 175 – 76 Victoria’s Secret, 70 Vietnam War, 83, 133 – 34 Vioxx, 11 Volkswagen Touareg, Walker, Rob, 70 – 71 Wal-Mart, 150 Whistler, 193 Whitman, Frankie, 193 Whole Foods Market, 115 Wilco, 177 Wine Spectator, 218 | INDEX WNBA, 154 Wonder Bread, 57, 81, 127 Woot.com, 151 – 52 Zagat, 167 Ziegler, Mel, 202 Ziglar, Zig, 202 Zwerdling, Daniel, WHAT’S YOUR STORY? That’s what people want to know from you They want your résumé, your packaging, your candidacy, your ads and your customer service people to tell them a story So the challenge you face is now clear You must have a consistent, authentic story that is framed in terms of the worldview of the person you’re telling the story to Your story must be robust and honest and transparent and you have to be prepared to live it out loud Yes, all marketers are liars But the successful ones are the ones that can honestly tell us a story we want to be lieve and share 220 | W H AT ’ S Y O U R S T O R Y IF you hope to sell a product or service or candidate or organization that affects the way people feel, AND IF you hope to get a premium (in revenue or in market share or in votes) for that feeling, THEN you must refocus your efforts Concentrate on the story you tell The story you tell affects the way your audience feels about the product The story, when you come right down to it, is the product SOME CONSUMERS will avoid or resist or deny you your story That’s okay Tell your story to people who want to hear it, who want to believe it, who will tell their friends BEFORE you begin to tell your story you have no choice but to live that story To make it authentic Every action you take and every signal you send has to be in support of the story FINALLY, realize that you are in a powerful position and use that power to the right thing, to tell the whole truth and to spread ideas worth spreading