Over the past week I have been thinking a lot about the commercial persuasion industry and how people are relating to brands. I guess this is because I have been reading Rob Walker’s Buying In. I have also been enjoying his Murketing blog recently. And yes, I am one of the 93% of Americans who think that “we are too focused as a society on working and spending and not enough on community” (see page 219 of the book).
93% of us are probably somewhat hypocritical…
Walker’s Buying In walks us through a bevy of interesting Guerilla marketing or “murketing” case studies (e.g. Red Bull flying events, the launch of Scion, PBR resurgence, etc. ) from an investigative journalist perspective. And in that context, he dives into the relationship between who we are and what we buy in a “post-material” world. Walker tries to get behind that “million $ forbidden fruit trigger” that all marketers want to find…he calls this “the desire code” (I confess that I read this section closely as a marketer).
So what Walker tries to refute is the idea that we as consumers have all grown immune to marketing messages (as the “experts” tell us) and that we as marketers should probably give up because there is nothing we can do that works anymore in the “post-brand” world.
Is this “rhetoric of the all-controlling consumer” just plain false?
Yes, says Walker. We are no more marketing resistant today than we were yesterday. But, in a sort of weird “jujitsu-esque” or Jedi mind trick way, we as consumers have started to embrace brands more than ever before. We are, in fact, complicit with brands now when we spread funny or provocative brand messages virally online or join a brand fan page on Facebook…when we do such things, we are kind of shouting “hey, I am with this brand”. I identify with it.
I admit to doing this myself…I even have an m-products area on m-cause. I write about brands I like, and then I categorize them as “m-products” when they seem to somewhat fit with the values that m-cause champions…so in effect, I am also doing exactly what Walker discusses on m-cause. hmmm…
So maybe, like Walker says, brands don’t have to simply shout their meaning out to us as often anymore; rather, we as consumers (more than we want to admit) are consciously giving meaning and helping brands thrive in this new “user-generated” and post-consumer world.
Go out and get the book…it is a pretty entertaining read, and a good mix of anthropology & biz journalism (as the Time magazine quote on the back of the book notes). The book made me stop and think about the implications of “pitching in” to help build brands on my own blog & Facebook profile.
On m-cause, I discuss marketing and good causes. Sometimes I talk about P&G (my company). Sometimes I talk about life in Europe. Sometimes I talk about random things. If you want to connect further, email me at roborj@yahoo.com or connect with me on Facebook. If you see any "good" stuff happening out there, please let me know...
2 Comments
Great post. Yep. Hypocrisy is, I guess, a part of human nature. It does seem on the rise these days, especially in Washington. But I suppose it has always been so.
Good post. I too recently finished Buying In and enjoyed the read. I like the idea that a new method of marketing, or the Jedi Tricks you allude to, has broken through our marketing resilient minds. At the same time, I look at the products like Scion (high style/design, yet low priced line of vehicles), Red Bull (first energy drink) and PBR (cheap beer, even in bars), and think maybe these are just great products, products that would have found their ways into our lives with or without the marketing methods employed.
Not to say Murketing doesn’t work, because I think clearly it does. But you can’t just market anything this way. The product must be good enough for us to let down our guard.
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[...] is explored a bit more in depth in Rob Walker’s Buying In, which I recently discussed in this post. Only time will tell…but it is great to see Nau pushing the envelope as one of the few [...]