Emotional understanding
Rowan Manahan explains Seth Godin's rationale for accusing marketers of leading us astray

Memories are recalled of sitting in the Tivoli
Theatre watching the incomparable Bill Hicks doing stand-up. He shouted
out to the audience: “By the way, if anyone here is in marketing or
advertising… kill yourself! There's no joke here, you are Satan's
little helpers; there's no excusing what you do; do the world a favour
and go suck on a tail pipe.”

At the time, your truly was in marketing and as Hicks spoke, I
slumped down lower and lower in my seat, hoping to go unnoticed. Seth
Godin, espouses many of Hicks' ideas, but in a more palatable and
useful way. All Marketers Are Liars is Godin's seventh book, all of
which are about highlighting ideas in today's deafeningly noisy
marketplace.

His thesis is simple: People notice only the new and then they
make a guess. Buying decisions are made on the basis of emotional
wants, not simple needs. So whether you are selling consumer goods or
high-end luxury items, you must work from that understanding.

'Godin's thesis is simple: people notice only the new and then they make a guess' – Rowan Manahan

Having met many marketers who seem to
understand this is how purchasers operate, few build their approach
around it. The days when “marketing = advertising” and one could rely
on an immediate consumer response to a strong ad effort are long gone.

In a globalised, homogenised world, you have to find something
about your product that stands out (“make it a purple cow”) and then,
you have to compete for head-space in the mind of your audience. All
Marketers Are Liars is highly readable and thought-provoking.

There are lots of dog ears in my copy for future reference. The
author's writing is clean and unequivocal, with a wry sense of humour
displayed throughout. It doesn't so much turn your worldview
upside-down, as nudge you into new and less than comfortable territory.

Godin refers to Malcolm Gladwell's Blink and compares the 'thin
slicing' concept with marketing. It occurs when a potential purchaser
becomes aware of your brand. In an instant, we make up our minds and
from then we only notice things that bear out that judgement.

Godin shows true understanding of the human psyche. A person
who votes for a politician who turns out to be venal, incompetent,
mendacious and self-serving will continue to vote for that politician
even if he/she has proved inept over a long period in power.

The voter does this not because they are happy with the bang-up
job that the politician is doing, but rather because to vote for anther
candidate is to admit that they were wrong in the first place,
cognitive dissonance in a nutshell and poo- pooing 'switching' your way
to greatness.

If Microsoft made cars that behaved in the same way as the
bloated, bug-ridden, user-hostile Windows operating system; consumers
would have risen up en masse, sued them out of existence and firebombed
their factories.

But in the same way that no amount of pointing out Betamax's
inherent superiority over the VHS format was going to switch VCR owners
back to Sony's format, Apple will never assume global dominance in the
PC market. It all comes down to lies.

Godin is careful to distinguish between stories, fibs, lies
and frauds, using Philip Morris' “The Cigarette Preferred By Doctors!”
campaign as a poignant example. He points out that trying to carry out
a fraud in today's world of instantaneous communication is suicidal.

But, he constantly reminds us, there are some lies that we just
love to tell ourselves. A pen from Mont Blanc is worth €500, a square
metre of silk from Herm