Blog: Marketing

Seth Godin is an amazing speaker who spreads simple, revolutionary ideas about marketing in the modern age. He speaks in a staccato with informative and often funny slides going while he speaks. In that spirit, here are some of his statements, occasionally paraphrased.

Ideas that spread, win.

The old world of TV marketing: I have money, I can interrupt whoever I want, whenever I want, with whatever message I want, even if it's not true.

The TV industrial complex: buy ads, use those ads to get more donations, get elected, raise money, use that money to buy more ads.

Now the world is filled with noise, and it's easy to ignore anything you don't want to hear. People have become very good at ignoring you. The TV model is broken.

Tiffany is giving the jewelry away; it's the box you pay for. Everyone is in the fashion business now.

10,000 years ago everyone was a hunter. Then the only animals were dead or really good at hiding. Farming came along and humanity was saved, except the politicians and the marketers. At election time, they go out and try to hit voters. Except the voters have become very good at hiding.

People like to do what other people are doing. Why did everyone do the Macarena? It's not because it's a good song! It's because when you would go to a wedding, everyone would make you do it. So why do politicians focus on private events with donors? Create movements and organizations where people can connect.

Targeting is a hunting term. Don't target, work the grapevine.

Don't look at the world as a funnel where you put ads in the top and hope a few votes come out of the bottom. Turn it into a megaphone and give it to the people. You're giving up some control but getting conversation, a current of support.

The new fashion permission complex: Be remarkable. Tell a story to your sneezers. They spread the word. You get people's permission to reach them.

Any NYC based collection of plans isn't complete without the two dueling proposals for waste management that Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Gifford Miller recently put forth, of which the Mayor's emerged victorious.

The mayor's plan isn't extremely well publicized, but isn't hard to find with a search on nyc.gov: table of contents and executive summary (PDF). (Super executive summary: create a bunch of transfer stations around the city, including many of the ones that formerly existed to float garbage to Fresh Kills, some of which would package the garbage to be taken away on barges by private companies, and some of which would transfer it to rail cars. Many minority neighborhoods support this plan because it would reduce the burden on their communities, who often bear the brunt of undesirable facilities being sited there.)

But I can't find Gifford Miller's alternative. Did he post it on his campaign site but then take it down after the Council failed to override the mayor's veto of the Council's rejection of the Mayor's plan? (And what's with that anyway? How does the Mayor get to veto the Council voting no on something?) Or was it ever posted online at all? I'd love to know more to be able to better comment on the difference, but I can't do that if I can't find the plan. Update: I was able to find this press release on the City Council site, which gives a good overview, though I still want to see more.

If a group has a plan, they need to do a good job publicizing it, and that includes making it easy for people to find and read a concise summary. Miller's campaign site has "The Miller Plan on Subways" and other "plans", but those links go to speeches, not summaries.

On the Greenpoint/Williamsburg rezoning, too often the media coverage portrayed the city's plan versus a bunch of community activists who didn't want any change. The community actually welcomed development, but in line with their ideas for how the community should grow; unfortunately, that often doesn't come across. I won't let the activists totally off the hook, though; they have a great comparison page but where's the actual plan? Why can't I read it or, better yet, see pictures?

I don't need the North Brooklyn Alliance to provide a 28-page PDF with architectural sketches and environmental impact analyses. Those things are expensive to create (though helpful). But for people to be enthusiastic about your vision, it really helps for them to be able to imagine your vision, and the first step is being able to tell them what your vision is simply and clearly.