Do People Hate Marketers or Just Marketing?
I know I said in my last post that I was going to talk more about Aquent and give the folks who are Aquent more of a voice here. Believe me, I will. But it's sort of late in the day and I want to get another post up, so I thought I would talk about something else: Hate.
"Hate" might be a strong word in this context, but I've been getting some funny reactions from folks, friends of mine, actually, when I tell them that I am "in marketing." For instance, I ran into an old buddy this morning on the "T" and, in the course of talking told him that I worked in marketing. "You don't look it," he quipped.
That's sort of a benign comment, even a kind of backhanded compliment, I suppose, and I probably wouldn't have noted it if it hadn't echoed similar sentiments I've recently encountered. To be specific, last Wednesday, talking with friends over drinks I mentioned my role as a a marketer and my friends said, "We won't tell anybody." Again, fairly low-level, but a kind of a dis, nonetheless, and one I was particularly sensitive to because only a few hours prior to that, when told that I was a marketer, another friend had said, "Well, at least it seems like you still have a soul."
This made me wonder: Are marketers truly soul-less pariahs who should hide their shame from friends and family? Possibly. Still, when it comes to marketing, I really think that people hate the game more than the players (though they might hate the players as well, at the end of the day). I say this based on a telling anecdote related by the friend kind enough to remark that my body, all association with marketing aside, appeared to be soulfully inhabited.
Here's the anecdote: "The classic marketing quote I heard recently was, 'People's perception is that we're crowded and over-priced. We need to change that perception.'" He found this quote "classic," because the strong implication was that, rather than changing the crowded and expensive reality being perceived, the marketers were going to focus on altering the perception of it. I think this reflects the typical perception, totally devoid of reality, I might add, that marketers are inveterate spinners, lily-gilders, and purveyors of perfidious puffery. They live to trick and deceive in order to make a buck. Despicable.
Because I don't like to think of myself as despicable, and because I hate being labeled and shunned, I've decided not to change my ways, but to change the words I use to describe what I do. From here on out, I will refer to myself either as " Senior Perception Architect" or "Chief Content Engineer."
Now, what are you other, if you pardon the expression, "marketers," going to do?
Image Courtesy of Karen Eliot.
Comments
I don't like marketers cause they lie. Too many times I saw marketers calling some product innovative, brilliant, a breakthrough, a clear winner etc. In 99% of cases the product is average at best, hardly new and nothing interesting, that makes its marketer a liar and i don't respect liars.
Besides there's way too many marketers who exploit ignorance of others for their personal gain which I find despicable.
Yeah I know there may be a few honest marketers somewhere but they are a tiny minority from my experience.
Posted by: Paul @ Mar 4, 2008
Hey Paul,
Seems to me that a lot of people share your view of marketers. The common belief is that marketers, if not out and out liars, can't be trusted because they will always talk about the products they market positively and talk about competing products negatively. If you want a straightforward opinion about a product, you'll read consumer reviews before you'll read the copy on a company's website.
Of course, "marketers" do a lot of different things and "marketing" products - in the sense of advertising why you should buy them - is only one of them. Some marketers focus on pricing, some focus on customer research, some focus on product development, some focus on channel management, and so on.
In the end, I wouldn't call marketers liars (plus, out and out lying about a product is a crime called "fraud"). I would fault them instead for robbing certain words, like "innovation," "breakthrough," "solution," and "change," of all meaning. Most ad copy isn't worthless because it's full of lies, it's worthless because it's devoid of meaning.
Posted by: Matthew T. Grant @ Mar 4, 2008