Seth Godin @ Google

March 5, 2006 4:05 PM

An engaging presentation given by bald marketing dude Seth Godin to the Google people on February 28. Godin goes over his usual themes, Permission Marketing, Ideas as virus, marketing as stories, etc. He also claims that technology without marketing can’t win in the marketplace. 48 minutes on Google Video
posted by growabrain (46 comments total)

I watched and enjoyed this because I'm a marketer and have read most of Godin's books, but 48 minutes is probably a bit to long for the average MeFites attention span.
posted by Mick at 6:51 PM on March 5, 2006

i disagree with his premise. people switched to google mostly without marketing. word of mouth etc. good technology sells itself. there are exceptions (VHS vs betamax etc) but those are most often when the average joe can't tell the difference on his own. </2 cents>
posted by Tryptophan-5ht at 6:58 PM on March 5, 2006

48 minutes. Bald marketing dude.

*looking for spoon with which to gouge out own eyes*
posted by BitterOldPunk at 7:13 PM on March 5, 2006

Huh. A marketer telling a company that became massively successful by having the best technology that having the best technology is nothing without marketing.

This is called "Not knowing your audience".
posted by Grimgrin at 7:31 PM on March 5, 2006

he took googles philosophy (dont be evil, being up front, simplicity, etc) and called it "accidental marketing". boo on that. Also, i directed people to google because the results were better. I don't think he gives page rank enough credit for their success.
posted by Tryptophan-5ht at 7:47 PM on March 5, 2006

"By the way, if anyone here is in advertising or marketing, kill yourself. Thank you, thank you. Just a little thought. I'm just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day they'll take root. I don't know. You try. You do what you can. Kill yourselves. Seriously though, if you are, do. No really, there's no rationalisation for what you do, and you are Satan's little helpers, OK? Kill yourselves, seriously."
posted by nightchrome at 7:48 PM on March 5, 2006

nightchrome - great Bill Hicks quote.

Godin is a joke, stating the obvious takes so much skill and insight, jeez, marketing is required to make a product successful.
Technological solutions that address real world problems, and do so in an elegant, inexpensive way, are likely to succeed to some degree. Godin is yet another "accidental technologist" who throws around buzzwords that are designed to convince us he has insight. Yawn.
posted by dbiedny at 8:09 PM on March 5, 2006

A marketer telling a company that became massively successful by having the best technology that having the best technology is nothing without marketing.

This is precisely what happened to Symantec. They let the fucking marketers take over from the engineers, and their software has turned to liquid shit since, even including all the aquisitions they made to try and keep ahead of the curve.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:37 PM on March 5, 2006

So for those of us with little patience for 48 minute marketing presentations, is "bald marketing dude" the way this guy markets himself, or is that more "accidental marketing"?
posted by mkhall at 9:02 PM on March 5, 2006

The actual presentation is only 30 minutes long (the rest is Q+A), and I liked it well enough.
posted by cillit bang at 9:22 PM on March 5, 2006

Yeah, Godin is a pretty pathetic huckster. Anyone who could seriously peddle ideas such as the Purple Cow™ lacks an appropriate sense of adult dignity and self-respect.


He seems to have caught the spirit of the Internet bubble, and ever since then, has been trying to revive it with his gimmicky sales books that are nothing more than brightly-colored retreads of Napoleon Hill.
posted by jayder at 9:43 PM on March 5, 2006

The cult of marketing can ruin anything.
posted by MillMan at 9:49 PM on March 5, 2006

I'm a Marketing guy and I really think Godin is pretty good, though a bit repetitive. He actually has more of a point than you might think.

Godin is pretty consistent in his two rules for companies that want to market and market well -- find out what people want and give it to them. Admittedly he's said the same thing for 3 books now, but some people don't catch on too quick...

This is why Godin can take Napoleon Hill's observations, retread them, and make a mint. People know how to successfully sell, but they just don't. The idea seems too simple, or old-fashioned or just not "cool" enough.

Current marketing theory is all about giving people solutions to their problems. The tricky part is that sometimes people don't even know they have a problem or that a solution is even possible As you might have noticed, some people are f*cking stupid.

As for Google, and the notion that simply having an elegant, inexpensive solution to a problem guarantees success, I laugh sarcastically at you. Cable TV, phone service, hemp, and most government officials prove your hypothesis incorrect.

Is marketing part of the reason for the current state of affairs? Yes. However, that is what Godin is trying to change. It's his mission to A. make himself obnoxiously wealthy and B. convince companies to stop trying to sell you crap you don't want. As I pointed out above however, some people are f*cking stupid and he has to use 250 pages to say what you or I could communicate in a simple 2-3 page double-spaced handout.

Google is successful because they innovated and they applied time-honored marketing techniques to their products and to the company as a whole.

Gmail was the perfect example of the creation of an artificial shortage to produce excitement for a product. (A Marketing 101 technique for a successful product launch) It was also a product that people wanted. This is what Godin has been talking about since "The Purple Cow." You don't want to market worthless crap. You want to market great products that people really need.

If more executives listened to Godin and embraced the ideas espoused in "The Purple Cow" and again in "Free Prize Inside" and again in "The Big Moo" and again in, well Jesus, you get the idea, the marketplace would actually be a lot better off.

But it's cool to bash us marketers. We're the old, fat white guys of the business world. Which I guess is OK, because when it comes right down to it, we get paid a damn nice wage for work that most people think anyone with half a brain can do.

My doctors assure me that I am in possession of a whole brain, so that leaves me with half a brain free to work on my SuDoku puzzles, take long lunches, and forward those hilarious SNL skits around the Internet.
posted by BeReasonable at 10:45 PM on March 5, 2006

There are good marketers and there are bad marketers. A lot of the time the good marketers are wrong and the nonmarketers are right. It's not a science, it's more of an intuition.

Godin uses an example of how little BMW spends on marketing compared to Ford. Apparently consumers aren't buying into the "story" myth that the marketers have invented. They're buying something tangible like German engineering.
posted by disgruntled at 2:53 AM on March 6, 2006

You don't want to market worthless crap. You want to market great products that people really need.

Wow. Amazing insight. I'll let the makers of Pop Tarts™ know that they won't need your services. Good luck with your half of a brain, oh fat old marketing dude.
posted by dbiedny at 3:58 AM on March 6, 2006

It is a refrain from marketers that 'it's cool to hate us', I've noticed. I think it's a mechanism to keep as far as possible from their conscious minds the possibility that those of us who hate them (or, more precisely, what they do) often have very good, non-inverse-coolhunting-related reasons for doing so.

Or, more likely, they really do believe that we're all stupid. I know I am.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:39 AM on March 6, 2006

Some people are stupid, very stupid, but most aren't. What they are is very busy and very, very unwilling to sit around for 35 minutes trying to decide what sort of breakfast food they want or what shoe to buy.

That's what marketing is about, making things easier for people. Admittedly, marketing is partially to blame for people having so many choices, but so is human nature. It seems to be a central part of human behavior to take the simple and make it complex. Marketing just tries to give people shortcuts.

I feel good about what I do, because I know that people need my services. People want someone to tell them why they want Kibblo Frosty Bits^TM instead of Janky Frostee Bits^TM. (Kibblos, of course, are the right choice because they contain 11 essential vitamins and minerals)

So that's why marketers don't have a problem being disliked. We know what we do is a valuable service. Kind of like government service or prostitution.
posted by BeReasonable at 6:24 AM on March 6, 2006

ugh. in my new economic fantasyland, marketing will be replaced by storytelling circles, and all marketers will be exiled to open mic poetry nights where they belong!
posted by eustatic at 7:44 AM on March 6, 2006

I hate to break it to you, but most decent marketers only provide "informational communication of the actual attributes of products, as needed to facilitate people finding what they want and avoiding what they don't want."

It's the listing of all attributes of the products that provides the opportunities for marketing. Some people care if shoes have rubber soles or new synthetic polymer ones. Some people just want to know that they are "well-made." What information do you list? The answer is what Marketing is all about.

Although ParEcon would be a nice place to visit...
posted by BeReasonable at 8:26 AM on March 6, 2006

This is called "Not knowing your audience".

... or perhaps it's called "Being willing to point out to your audience that they don't understand how they got where they are."

I'm not familiar with Seth Godin, but I am familiar with Google. I find the notion that they "won" because of "better technology" but without marketing to be quaint and amusingly naive.

Google got where it is by marketing. You can choose to define what they did in other terms, but I'll just about guarantee you that all those terms can be mapped to marketing concepts.

"Don't be evil" was, put simply, a marketing tool. Sure, it's a statement of principle -- but in a context of product, that's what statements of principle are (ideally): Marketing tools. And it was a great tool. Hell, it got all y'all little Googleites rarin' up on your haunches begging for more.

Here's a thought to get you going: Maybe Larry and Sergey were serious about their convictions and using them as marketing tools? Maybe they didn't use traditional marketing terminology, but were nevertheless trying to do the same things that you try to describe with traditional marketing terminology? As I recall from reading the foundational Google shit, it was all heavily informed by New Economista net.libertarianism: Meritocracy and honor will out, and the best shall be the last. Market theory, to put it succinctly. Well, that's what marketing is about, kids: Markets. Getting the most effective play in the markets.

Googlites, though, will continue to see Google as free from that taint. They'll want to argue that the meritocracy is real, and that Google "won" because of technology, and no other reasons. (Pet peeve: A clean user interface is not "technology." Search results that are not contaminated by pay-for-placement or heavyweight ads are not "technology." Those things are design decisions -- aesthetic decisions -- marketing decisions.)

As for "accidental marketing" -- I have to say, I really like that phrase.

Oh, and all the cute disparaging comments and the Bill Hicks rants about how EEEEEEEVVVVVVVIIIIIILLLL advertising and marketing are? Dudes: You live in America. Wake. Up. You are: Soaking in it.
posted by lodurr at 9:38 AM on March 6, 2006

The presentation wasn't much more than anecdotal conjecture. No real problems, no real solutions, nothing practical for Google to use in the future. Just another presentation by a flaky marketing hack.

Google succeeded because it had a simple and friendly interface that produced desired results and was, and still is, a pleasant experience, like owning a Lexus or drinking imported water from the French alps. People drink bottled water because they don't want to drink water that's been treated in the municipal water supply. Nobody cares about some "story" myth, they care about the experience they're going to have. If bottled water tasted like shit they'd switch back to tap water.
posted by disgruntled at 11:08 AM on March 6, 2006

I'd have to disagree with you there disgruntled. Google does produce very good products but what happens when Microsoft and Yahoo stop trying to outbuild Google and outsell them instead?

Much like your examples of imported water and the Lexus, the real difference in the products is what marketing says it is. In my part of the US and elsewhere, municipal water is actually purer and better tasting than what bottled water companies put out. No, really it is, my city's water won awards and everything.

The point though is that people could give a crap and they buy brand name bottled water. When Microsoft and Yahoo and others get hip to the fact that they won't be able to outdesign or outbuild Google, they'll try to hurt Google by marketing against them.

If Google doesn't have stories or marketing strategies of its own to counter with, good products really won't make a big difference. People don't really have the time or inclination to make careful, informed decisions or else elections would look very different than they do today.
posted by BeReasonable at 11:32 AM on March 6, 2006

I like Godin because his cocnept of permission marketing is the opposite of intrusive advertising and spamming, and he insists its what will work best in marketing to the public, despite the fact that intrusive adverisement and spamming work. It's like he doesn't even know they work.

If only everyone could be so naive. Because I would rather live in a world that runs on permission marketing.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:53 AM on March 6, 2006

BeReasonable, I think one counter-answer lies in your own response: What, indeed, happens when MS and Y try to outsell them?

That happens, in part, via "story" or "narrative"; but in part it happens by, you know, sales. Which is not, itself, marketing, and is often in competition with marketing for scarce intellectual resources ("mindshare", if you will) in a corporation.

Google is in a hard phase: They're trying to grow out of the old "accidental marketing" phase, where they got by on a mix of geek-cred and good user experience, into a phase where they can actually monetize geek cred and good user experience. And as we can all see in our own lives, when you try to monetize things like that, as often as not you kill them.

Google's an 800lb gorilla; they're not going away anytime soon. But I think their dominance of the "web 2.0" space is hardly certain. (Not that I much like the obvious alternatives...)
posted by lodurr at 11:56 AM on March 6, 2006

Much like your examples of imported water and the Lexus, the real difference in the products is what marketing says it is.

Not true. Lexus replaced Cadillac as the #1 luxury brand in the U.S. even though both brands have essentially the same marketing. The difference is a tangible experience between the quality of vehicle that Toyota/Lexus builds compared to the cheap plastic materials used in Cadillac/GM.

In my part of the US and elsewhere, municipal water is actually purer and better tasting than what bottled water companies put out. No, really it is, my city's water won awards and everything.

Well, taste is subjective. The fact is people are more secure with drinking a bottled product compared to one that comes out of a municipal tap, like any other beverage. The problem is people can't see the microcontainaments in water, so unless your city educates everyone on how much more pure their award winning water is compared to the leading brand of bottled water, they'll continue to drink from a bottle. It's the pollutants in the environment that have turned people off from drinking tap water, not the marketers who have turned them on to drinking branded water.
posted by disgruntled at 12:46 PM on March 6, 2006

It's funny, disgruntled, because your bottled water example is really a much better example for the other side. People drink bottled water because the people who make the bottled water are successfully marketing a story. The story is that the bottled water is from a pure mountain stream, untouched by human hands, so it must be so much purer and better for them than municipal water out of a tap.

Now, the water may or may not be from a pure mountain stream, but the fact is that it is almost certainly not better for you, because it is not tested and treated like municipal water. Bottled water almost always has more pollutants than the stuff that the city delivers to you. And I defy you to find more than a very few people who could actually tell the difference among waters strictly on taste. But they really enjoy their bottled water because they really believe it's purer and better. More power to them (except for all of the waste that goes into producing and delivering bottled water).

As I understand it, the Lexus is basically really a somewhat improved Toyota [disclaimer: I know nothing about cars]. They're made by the same company. But Lexus costs a bunch more mostly because people want to think of themselves as a success, that they worked hard and deserve to treat themselves to a luxurious experience. That's a huge part of why they enjoy the car, it's because of the story they're telling themselves.

As someone who has worked in advertising and marketing, I'm always surprised by how everyone thinks they are uninfluenced by advertising. It's part of what makes advertising so effective. People can't understand that while the ad may not "work" in terms of convincing you to buy a product, that's not really the point of the ad. The point of the ad is to make sure the product is associated with a lifestyle, experience, or even a feeling, that is positive for you. The idea is not to make you think, consciously, "I want a Bud because babes in bikinis like guys who drink bud," it's to associate Bud with an experience you like--partying with hot chicks.
posted by lackutrol at 12:48 PM on March 6, 2006

Obviously I should have previewed that.

Disgruntled, you continue to make points for the other side. Basically you're saying in your response about bottled water that the city needs to market its water as being better--isn't that what "educate" means there? Since they have no reason to do that, the bottling companies continue to grow market share. Their story, about the mountain spring or whatever, dominates.

And Lexus and Cadillac most definitely do not have the same marketing. Cadillac is trying to appeal to a younger demographic (with 70's rock?!), while Lexus projects a somewhat more sophisticated, more traditional luxury image. I think at least part of the move you describe has to do with lousy marketing--and neither of us can prove the other wrong.

Anyway, both good and bad products can win in the marketplace. The fact that Lexus may be the better vehicle (and I really don't know) does not preculde it from having more effective marketing.
posted by lackutrol at 12:57 PM on March 6, 2006

It's funny, disgruntled, because your bottled water example is really a much better example for the other side.

It's funny that you think that. When did you stop beating your wife?

People drink bottled water because the people who make the bottled water are successfully marketing a story. The story is that the bottled water is from a pure mountain stream, untouched by human hands, so it must be so much purer and better for them than municipal water out of a tap.

Not true. Read the last sentence in my post: It's the pollutants in the environment that have turned people off from drinking tap water, not the marketers who have turned them on to drinking branded water.

As I understand it, the Lexus is basically really a somewhat improved Toyota [disclaimer: I know nothing about cars]. They're made by the same company. But Lexus costs a bunch more mostly because people want to think of themselves as a success, that they worked hard and deserve to treat themselves to a luxurious experience. That's a huge part of why they enjoy the car, it's because of the story they're telling themselves.

They're not telling themselves a story. That's sheer nonsense. A Lexus is an exceptionally refined and quiet vehicle that translates into a real experience. You just don't get it. Consumers make real qualititave distinctions between products everyday while ignoring the advertising hype that's lead them astray so many times in the past. Wise up.
posted by disgruntled at 2:43 PM on March 6, 2006

did anyone find the "get permission" bit a little freeky. He means signing into a website - eBay, Amazon which he cited, so that recommendations can be given. Isn't there a bit of scope there for google asking for cookies etc... then warping the web so results show what google know you want to see.

I find it a bit eerie that Amazon can predict what I'd like... I don't particularly want my search engine doing the same
posted by RufusW at 4:41 PM on March 6, 2006

Google got where it is by marketing.

I'd differ there. I think Google got where it was by offering the best search technology the world had yet seen. They have proceeded to progressively piss away the goodwill that the quality of that original service generated with their random semi-productized betatest public-sandbox bullshit (buried in which, just as a product of the sheer number, there have been a few gems, I admit), the spectre of their growing hegemonic control of information ('upload your life into the Google, and truuuust us, 'cause we're not evil at all, honest!', and their 'marketing' and transformation into an advertising company since.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:53 PM on March 6, 2006

Stavrosthewonderchicken, obviously their marketing did not work on you.

Disgruntled, you seem to be a big fan of the Lexus, but I don't think that everyone else is, or even should be. I've owned or ridden around in on a regular basis, a wide variety of automobiles, both luxury and budget class. However, given my innnate ability to destroy machinery, the best car for me is one that comes with a great warranty and comprehensive service plan. Parts that don't cost a mint are a factor in my decision too.

Once again, that's the point of marketing. Everyone has different needs and wants and as soon as you accept that different people need different information, you've got marketing. What's more, you need marketing because people just don't want to spend all that much time making decisions.

That being said, I would sell my mom for the 2006 Lexus SC 430 in the twilight amethyst pearl -- maybe black.

Lodurr, I am also quite interested in what happens to Google in the next few years.

I've been part of several, um, less than positively perceived companies, and I'm curious to see how a company built on smart technologies and good corporate citizenship handles the transition to a real grown-up company. A state where sometimes, you can't do the right thing because it jeopardizes stock values.
posted by BeReasonable at 8:46 PM on March 6, 2006

I love Google purely for the 99.9% accuracy of their results. On the other hand, I love to see how people buy stuff after they're told they want it/ need it. On the third hand, I hate to be sold on anything, unless the salesman is really good.
posted by growabrain at 10:47 PM on March 6, 2006

It seems so obvious that it's not worth saying, but I'll say it anyway: marketing and engineering are both necessary for a technology firm to be very successful. If you're marketing-centric, you need engineering to make something that people want to buy. If you're engineer-oriented, you need marketing to let interested parties know about your wonderful creation.

That said, marketing perpetrates its fair share of evil when it manufactures needs and generally lies. Ultimately, marketing and engineering need to communicate better, and perhaps more equitably. Marketing may understand the consumers, but you can't really get away with not understanding the technology. By comparison, engineers are wild-eyed romantics who fall in love with their machines and hate the consumer...at least, that's the semi-valid stereotype. Can't we all just...collaborate on product development?
posted by Edgewise at 11:09 PM on March 6, 2006

Consumers make real qualititave distinctions between products everyday while ignoring the advertising hype that's lead them astray so many times in the past. Wise up.

Of course, advertising has no effect. That's why it's an 800 billion dollar industry worldwide. Those silly companies just want to throw their money away!

Anyway, Edgewise, thanks for your accurate and helpful first paragraph. I take issue with the second only because I don't think it's particularly fair to blame the people who sell the product. Just about every industry in the world advertises, and if you work for any kind of for-profit company and complain about advertising, well, sorry, but that's how whatever you make gets sold. Somehow you tell people about your product, and that is in part why they buy it. That's marketing.
posted by lackutrol at 7:22 AM on March 7, 2006

I liked the video, but have two comments.

First, like many Guru presentations I see, be it on the Web or during PBS fund drives, I get the impression that I'm watching a summary of something that was gone over in more detail previously; this video seems scatterbrained, or something. Is this the case, or am I just really stupid.

Second, I am surprised that Google would permit this video to be on its site. The idea the Google needs guidance of this kind seems to subtract from its mystique, no?
posted by ParisParamus at 8:26 AM on March 7, 2006

disgruntled: A Lexus is an exceptionally refined and quiet vehicle that translates into a real experience.

True enough, but a Lexus is also nothing but a refined Toyota. You can set the corresponding models side by side and see the similarities. In fact, the corresponding Toyota model might even be faster or handle better.

But what will be remarkably different is the fit and finish and the materials. The Lexus will feel better, because the materials used will be more appealing and the parts will feel more "solid". The sound insulation and suspension are geared toward luxury customers.

It's a real experience. But why does that experience work? To me, the first question isn't interesting without the second.

Google is a similar case: They made a fast search engine that didn't have a lot of clutter, and applied a classic array of guerilla marketing tactics. I don't have proof, but if I knew of a way to test this hypothesis I'd bet money that Google engaged in active marketing during the period when popular myth has them rising to prominence on sheer word-of-mouth.

Anyway, I digress: Google is part real experience, part hype, and it's hard to separate the two. Many people use Google just because, well, that's what you do -- that's the de facto default search option. It's the very verb "to search".
posted by lodurr at 10:19 AM on March 7, 2006

It's a real experience. But why does that experience work? To me, the first question isn't interesting without the second.

Maybe if marketers didn't live inside their heads, they wouldn't have to ask that question. It's pretty obvious.

Of course, advertising has no effect. That's why it's an 800 billion dollar industry worldwide. Those silly companies just want to throw their money away!

You got that right. When everyone was saying "Wassuuuuup!!!" Budweiser's sales actually went down.

Some people have even become completely immune to advertising. Sure they buy products to try them out; if they have a negative experience, they dump the product, if they have a positive experience, they come back.

You can exaggerate the importance of marketing and take responsibility for Google's success alll you want, but the bottom line is: marketing just makes people aware of a company's products or service, if that product or service doesn't live up to a customers expectations, they'll go somewhere else. The "story" myth is pure fiction that marketers use to persuade their clients into thinking they know something that the client doesn't. It's like religion or mythology, and celebrity/gurus like Godin are the high priests. Funny how he never used any data or examples of how he's increased market share for any of his clients and demonstrated how his methods were responisble.
posted by disgruntled at 1:01 PM on March 7, 2006

disgruntled, if you seriously believe that anyone is "immune" to advertising, then I have some wonderful beachfront resort property I'd love to interest you in. It's in this place called Sparks, Nevada....

You can cite tokens all you want, but they only work if we ignore the details. For example, that absurd "Wassup" campaign is a classic example of bad advertising theory: It focused on being clever at the expense of moving product.

Now, as it happens, I'm working in advertising right now. This is actually the first time I've gotten paid to work in advertising, but I've spent years looking at it from the perspective of someone with SO's and close friends in the business, and the perspective of someone who's extremely cynical and jaded about commercialism. The thing is, if it's done "right", it works. If you seriously doubt that, then I suggest you are deluding yourself, and dangerously so.

Here's a fact for you: People can be influenced.

Or, as I more often put it: Anybody can be conned.

The people who don't get that, or who think they're immune, are the ones most susceiptible to getting conned. Just ask any grifter: The easiest mark is the one who thinks he's too smart to be a mark.
posted by lodurr at 1:51 PM on March 7, 2006

You should learn to read. I never said *anyone* is immune to advertising, I said some people are. You really should learn to read and absorb information accurately and stop believing in your own hyperbole.

For example, that absurd "Wassup" campaign is a classic example of bad advertising theory: It focused on being clever at the expense of moving product.

It's more like you throw stuff at the wall and you see what sticks. You really don't know if your ideas are going to move a product in a measurable way, you really don't.

Here's a fact for you: People can be influenced.

Thanks for stating the obvious. Do people actually pay you for this stuff? Astonishing.
posted by disgruntled at 3:00 PM on March 7, 2006

It's not just his username, it's a way of live!
posted by Mick at 3:56 PM on March 7, 2006

You're right, disgruntled: You didn't say "anyone" -- you said "some people".

I said "anyone". And if you were capable of reading and parsing information, you would have understood what was meant: If 'not anyone' is immune to advertising, then no one is immune to advertising. Therefore, "some people" -- e.g., you -- are not immune to advertising.

It's a bold statement, I'll admit, but I'll stand by it. Too bad you didn't understand it. I thought the language was plain enough. I guess I was wrong.

BTW: I'm a tech geek. Nobody pays me for my advertising or marketing insights, except as it pertains to web usability.

And as for stating the obvious: As you demonstrate, it's often necessary, since the world is full of people who are either incapable or unwilling to see it. (Which, I suppose, is a good thing if you're a con artist.)
posted by lodurr at 5:07 AM on March 8, 2006

If 'not anyone' is immune to advertising, then no one is immune to advertising. Therefore, "some people" -- e.g., you -- are not immune to advertising.

Anyone means any one. Go down to the bus stop and any one of those people hanging around would be immune to advertising. Not true. Studies have shown that children are most susceptible to advertising and adults over the age of fourty become less and less susceptible as they get older.

As I said before: Godin doesn't bother to demonstrate how his ideas have benefitted his clients in a measurable way.

You know adevrtising executives call their presentations bullshit. Really, it's bullshitting the client. They have no idea if their campaign is going to move product. They don't care. All they know is how clever and creative it is. Now to get the client to pay for it, they have to bullshit. And all the client can do is take a leap of faith.
posted by disgruntled at 10:53 AM on March 8, 2006

If 'not anyone' is immune to advertising, then no one is immune to advertising. Therefore, "some people" -- e.g., you -- are not immune to advertising.

Anyone means any one. Go down to the bus stop and any one of those people hanging around would be immune to advertising. Not true. Studies have shown that children are most susceptible to advertising and adults over the age of fourty become less and less susceptible as they get older.

As I said before: Godin doesn't bother to demonstrate how his ideas have benefitted his clients in a measurable way.

You know adevrtising executives call their presentations bullshit. Really, it's bullshitting the client. They have no idea if their campaign is going to move product. They don't care. All they know is how clever and creative it is. Now to get the client to pay for it, they have to bullshit. And all the client can do is take a leap of faith.
posted by disgruntled at 10:53 AM on March 8, 2006

You have a very odd undersanding of the term "immune."

And you're talkign out both sides of your mouth while you're at it. On the one hand, the broadly logical possibility that some magical person somewhere is immune to advertising makes all your points for you; on the other hand, the fact that some (and I do know that it's "some") "advertising executives" "call their presentations bullshit" then means that no advertising works.

This is a very strange way of reasoning you have.

--
*I think what you mean to say is "Account Executives." Increasingly, though, presentations are made by ACDs and CDs.
posted by lodurr at 1:51 PM on March 8, 2006

I see you'd rather tangle yourself up in semantics and not address my most valid point: that Godin doesn't demonstrate how his ideas have benefitted his clients in a measurable way.
posted by disgruntled at 4:03 PM on March 8, 2006

I never debated that point, disgruntled. You just decided to think that I did.

Get your head out of your ass and stop trying to score points, and you'll get a lot more out of the discussion.
posted by lodurr at 9:47 AM on March 9, 2006