All Marketers Are Liars: The Power of TellingAuthentic Stories in a Low Trust World
. With that provocative title and opening salvo,
well known author, marketing expert, and business blogger Seth Godin takes the
reader on another landmark journey into the marketing field.
After reading All Marketers Are Liars, your
approach to marketing, advertising,
In this book, Seth Godin discusses the practice of
telling compelling, attention grabbing stories about a product and gives
examples of products that use this approach and shows that this practice is a
compelling ways to market a product. The story that is told is the
"lie" that he references in his title most.
The author points out that great marketing stories
succeed because of the following attributes:
1.
A great story is
true.
A great story is not based on facts. Its truth lies in a consistent and
authentic message.
2.
Great stories make
a promise.
Great stories promise something to the consumer that is bold and worth
listening to. BMW calls their offering "The Ultimate Driving
Machine." As someone who loves to drive, when I hear this promise, it
makes me feel like going out and driving a BMW.
3.
Great stories are
trusted.
In the Amazon Kindle story, the story teller is Jeff Bezos, who founded
Amazon.com in the 1990's with the story of a better way to purchase books.
4.
Great stories are
subtle.
People like to draw their own conclusions. Consumers will come up with the
story themselves. When we see a television ad for the Apple Ipad, does Apple
come out and tell us what the story is? No. Instead they show people using the
Ipad in cool and different ways, with various applications, and let us draw our
own conclusion.
5.
Great stories
happen fast.
A good story engages people quickly. It gets to the point. One of Kawasaki's
commercials for quads and off-road motorcycles immediately shows users ripping
through the woods on a Kawasaki Quad, and then switches to a rider tearing
through the desert terrain on a Kawasaki dirt bike.
6.
Great stories don't
appeal to logic, but they often appeal to our senses. Does Axe body
spray really attract hundreds of woman to you all at once, as the commercial
portrays? Of course not! But does the prospect of attracting a lot of women by
using Axe body spray appeal to eligible men? Of course it does.
7.
Great stories are
rarely aimed at everyone. Watering down a story to appeal to everyone, will
appeal to no one. The Axe body spray story isn't intended to appeal to a
fifty-five year old woman with four children. Rather, the story is intended for
a younger, specific male demographic.
8.
Great stories agree
with our worldview.
The best stories are aimed at listeners with a specific worldview, who will
feel better and more secure after hearing the story because it already agrees
with what they believed in the first place.
Telling stories about a product is a fairly common
and accepted practice in most marketing department nowadays. If the idea that
telling stories is new to you, than you might find this book an interesting
read because throughout the book Godin gives examples of well-known brands and
their stories.
Don’t
miss out Go buy this book and use it to create your great story!
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