The new marketing mantra is build a brand. If a brand is built, there will be equity in the company. How to do this? Invest in a startup that has no initial value; hype the business, not its products; create an image in the public's eye independent of product or consumer base; sell the business to those who invest in stock or companies that seek to gain market without the old-time method of building from within; reap the benefits, i.e., get back your initial investment plus a healthy return. Now that's HUMBUG in every sense that people accused P. T. Barnum of foisting on the public. This strategy succeeds only if "there's a sucker born every minute." Rise of the NASDAQ is following this pyramiding scheme.
On the other hand, some see selling as nothing more than placing advertisements on radio, television or the Internet; paper, sign boards or other visual displays. Examples abound. Acceptance of this supposition ignores history and gives in too soon to the illusion that advertising a product will lead consumers to the watering trough where they will gladly part with their money. This school of thought either ignores or doesn't understand that selling is nothing more than causing wants to be identified as needs, and then motivating the customer to step right up. How you do this is what successful marketing is all about.
Psychologists discovered (shortly after they discovered sex) that it's the sizzle, not the steak, it's the illusion. Their teaching was that some deeply desired, previously unattainable want could be satisfied and would sell products so identified. The object of this type advertising campaign can hardly be resisted. Who doesn't want to be more popular, smell better, hold their water just a bit longer, have larger (or at least appear to have) whatever's? How to accomplish this is another matter.
Aldous Huxley while revisiting his Brave New World, in a book entitled just that, takes us on a tour de force of the art of selling. "The principles underlying this kind of propaganda are extremely simple. Find some common desire, some widespread unconscious fear or anxiety; think out some way to relate this wish or fear to the product you have to sell; then build a bridge of verbal or pictorial symbols over which your customer can pass from fact to compensatory dream, and from the dream to the illusion that your product, when purchased, will make the dream come true." He quotes an unidentified source as follows; "We no longer buy oranges, we buy vitality. We do not buy just an auto, we buy prestige." He continues; "And so with all the rest. In toothpaste, for example, we buy, not a mere cleanser and antiseptic, but release from the fear of being sexually repulsive. In vodka and whisky we are not buying a protoplasmic poison which, in small doses, may depress the nervous system in a psychologically valuable way; we are buying friendliness and good fellowship, the warmth of Dingley Dell and the brilliance of the Mermaid Tavern. With our laxatives we buy the health of a Greek god, the radiance of one of Dana's nymphs. With the monthly best seller we acquire culture, the envy of the less sophisticated. In every case the motivation analyst has found some deep-seated wish or fear, whose energy can be used to move the consumer to part with cash and so, indirectly, to turn the wheels of industry."
So said Aldous Huxley way back in 1957 when his small book, Brave New World Revisited, issued (although these musings were actually published in Newsday in bits and starts earlier.)
Now fast forward to the textbooks of today offered to our students in colleges throughout the land. These marketing texts are intended for the upper level class-men and women who will become leaders in companies who seek to sell products that no one really needs. They haven't a clue. How can this be?
Take a look at what is said about marketing from a couple of texts. Names of the books and the professors that are the authors are withheld to protect the "innocent."
In the first one off the shelf there is presented a pyramid of needs. The first level and largest is physiological - drink, sex, shelter. Second is safety charity, protection, order. Third is belonging and love for affection, belonging to a group and acceptance. Fourth is esteem for self respect, reputation, prestige and status. Fifth is self-actualization -, i.e., self fulfillment. Sixth is knowledge of which there are no synonyms. And last, Sixth is beauty - this is in the eyes of the beholder, no explanations are necessary.
I ask you isn't Huxley more on target. The professors lose the fox in the chase because they are too busy adjusting the saddle on their mount. They try to identify need without a clue as to what it is with the exception of food and drink, they have identified wants not needs.
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Onward to the second:
"Needs are states of felt deprivation. Basic physical needs (are) for food, clothing, warmth, and safety. Social needs (are) for belonging and affection; individual needs (are) for knowledge and self expression.
Wants are the form when needs are shaped by culture and individual personality.
Demands are needs that are backed up by money. You want it, buy it."
Doesn't this sound a bit like the first text just fifteen years earlier? Still, not a clue for the student on what's going on. Simpler stated would be that there are only two needs; food to fuel the ATP engine which drives our cells and water in which chemical reactions can occur. The naked ape is not unlike all other organism from the lowly worms living in ocean depth that doesn't eat but simply absorbs nutrients and survives, to ants and termites that have elaborate social structures, to birds that create perfect nest in which to house their eggs and young, but all still must partake of food and water if their acts of procreation are to survive. Food and water are the only needs, all the rest are wants and just icing on the cake.
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And the third., a recently released text.
Marketing Perspectives is the framework under which the book is organized. They are: global, relationship, ethical, quality value, productivity, visionary, execution, entrepreneurial, ecological and technological.
No where in the book can be found the identity of the customer and how to manipulate his wants. Since that's the basis for successful selling; the book, the authors and possibly the students fail the test of what constitutes marketing.
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Students having finished these fine courses at prestigious universities and colleges are now prepared to tell "big business" how to pluck the chicken. Hogwash!
P. T. Barnum knew more about marketing than these tower-entrapped individuals will ever know. His rules of business were simple, straight forward and Oh, yes; he understood the secret wants of his customers. In one of his exhibit halls he posted a sign; to the giant egress. This was necessary to get people to move on so that he could get even more paying customers inside. Of course when those who followed the sign found themselves outside, what did they do? Many put down hard earned money and reentered. Now that sells to an unnecessary want, creating a demand. The customer doesn't mind being hoodwinked as long as he finds humor or satisfaction and is not degraded in the process. Was Barnum a Humbug? No but he sure was a huckster. Barnum's the huckster understood how to make the cash register ring. He was a marketing genius.
Bill Wortham, the author of I Hate Computers, and a number of other books had a favorite saying; "fooled me once, shame on he; fooled me twice, shame on me." Companies that rely on advertising, shouldn't forget that the same rule applies. Promise to deliver a gift from the gods and fall short; beware; the customer has a long memory!
In the Wall Street Journal of February 4, 2000, there appeared an article describing design of products for the new-rich and famous. Some are downright unsafe, others do poorly what they were intended to do and there are those that simply fail to work. Why would someone buy these so called "dysfunctional" products? The marketeer has tapped into a class of buyers that find prestige and a bit of "art" in these insane items. He has motivated a group (and there must be a group to support production of gewgaws , foofaraw, etc.) to express their wants as demands. The question remains, will these same customers return for more?
Sales through auctions, either physical or Internet, are not marketing in the sense that no development of the market for that particular item has been done. An existing demand as defined in the second book referenced above, simply means that a customer has money to pay for the item. This demand is the result of a want having previously been established in some way. That's not to say that sometimes a "pig in a poke" is not bought, buyer beware, no warrantee given or implied, which is outside the laws of want.
An owner of a restaurant in Columbia, Maryland had this to say about the poor quality of the food he served. "I have no repeat customers, not because of the food, service, or price. The ones who eat here will probably pass this way but once. Since they never come back, why should I care about the food?"
Venture capitalist have discovered marketing. Their approach is to force a company in which they have invested to shift resources into advertising, spending sometimes sixty to eighty percent of their total budget on promotion. As the public becomes aware of the company, hopefully they will they take a position in the hyped-up company pumping the stock to new highs. Then the venture capitalists get out before the shell game is over, and like vultures, seek out the next carcass.
What do all these examples have in common? Aldous Huxley said it best: "... some deep-seated wish or fear, whose energy can be used to move the consumer to part with cash and so, indirectly, to turn the wheels of industry." It makes little difference if it's corn flakes or e-commerce, consumer response is the same, a want is converted into a demand.
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Brave New World Revisited, pp 63, Aldous Huxley.
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