ClassDC

Marketers tend to make things up…

Or exaggerate.

A lot.

MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

There’s no need to restate this with much emphasis; it’s an obvious given of human nature. We are drawn toward what looks good, sounds good, smells good… I mean sure, we can get all Maslow-ian and talk about the basic human needs theory and such…

But, it’s true — the fundamental tenets of advertising and marketing revolve around appealing to those needs:

Let’s take email deliverability as an example. Sure technology’s great, but it really hingest on Maslow’s basic needs theory (it’s a stretch):

Email Open Rates

Marketing 101 tells us that sender name is the biggest determinant of an email’s likelihood to be opened. Why? Well if it comes from your wife, it’s probably offering you love and belonging (or fear of losing it if you messed up the night before). If you get an email with your boss’s name, it’s likely something that will affect your job safety (and perhaps even a commendation to boost your esteem).

Everything from the technology, to the packaging of a product, the communication of value, and the consumer experience all rely on certain human givens that help us to “create demand” — I laughed here as I typed this unknowingly. We talk about demand generation so much in our day to day work when there’s no demand greater than basic human needs… (again, yes… a big stretch here)…

Now to my point about historians and marketers

I didn’t mean to go off on a review of psychology’s history and systems… Dr. Pickren must’ve done something right in college if I still remember this… but since I’m sure most of you don’t care for this, here’s something interesting that I heard today while listening to a re-run of comedian Robert Wuhl’s “Assume the Position” lecture on American history. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it — it’s a good piece, very funny, is historically relevant and accurate for the most part, and might teach you a lesson or two in the power of buzz marketing.

He has a lot of good ones, but here’s one of his little pieces, where we can relate to as marketers.

Who rode by horseback two, three hundred miles to warn the Minutemen that the British were invading?

We all think it’s Paul Revere of course. According to the books, it’s Ishmael Bissell who did the real legwork. Paul Revere… well he only rode a few miles, but HIS STORY WAS MORE COMPELLING TO THE MASSES (watch the video if you want to know why) ….

And so it became history.

Lesson to be learned here, market what’s compelling, not what’s true. Stretch the truth as far as possible, and border on lies when you need to. After all, in a few hundred years, if you did a good job, nobody will know the truth. They’ll only know what sounded good… what looked good… (maybe what smelled good).

Watch this video if you haven’t seen it before on HBO.

ROBERT WUHL’S “ASSUME THE POSITION”