Like many in the community/social media space, I cringe when people call me a “marketer”. I completely agree with Chris when he says:
One reason why I felt I wasn’t a marketer was that my stereotype for marketers was being “that guy.” You know the one. He tells you about himself all the time, about his product all the time, about how all roads lead to him/his product all the time. EVERYTHING is about the message. Nothing is genuine, and nothing is ever participatory.
Following up on that post, Chris Heuer adds some fantastic thoughts to the discussion regarding what “real marketing”actually is.
It’s time to talk once again about what I still think of as “real marketing”. For me this means the process of matching a product/service with the people who will get the most benefit/satisfaction/enjoyment from it. This is about serving the market’s interest by being a matchmaker of value between people and companies – caring about both, but more importantly caring about your own integrity.
Completely agree with both Chris’. Over the years (or perhaps decades? generations?), marketing has built big thick brick walls between company and consumer. It started slowly, pushing consumers further away in order to protect against lawsuits or PR debacles. But it was also because it was easy to measure. After all, if you lob a “campaign” over the wall, you can watch where it lands and measure the splash damage. At least as well as you can from your post on this side of that ever growing wall.
You know, now that I think about this, perhaps it’s not walls we’re talking about. Perhaps it’s more akin to trench warfare:
Trench warfare arose when there was a revolution in firepower without similar advances in mobility and communications.
Sound familiar? Perhaps like giving marketers television ads, CRM databases, email newsletters, and any other Weapon of Mass Disturbance?
It’s no damn wonder we’re so hesitant to associate ourselves with marketing…
