Marketing

It’s time for marketers to stop lying

Walter Pike
 
In some recent research in Europe, advertising practitioners and PR bottomed out of the scale of the most trustworthy professionals. Not surprised? We have got so used to the idea of PR spin and advertising puffery (over-promising) that we just accept it as the way they communicate.

For years, we have lived in an economy in which the business/seller has controlled the flow of information. In this kind of space, PR could spin and advertising could promise what they liked; nobody really knew better. In the connected economy, this is becoming harder and harder to do.

Yesterday, when a customer caught you out, and they told their friends, it was very serious because 6 or 10 or 20 people heard the story. Today, you let down the same customer and guess what, the entire world could know about it and it will be searchable on Google, forever.

Many times, we in S outh Africa sit back and say ‘oh well, not such a big deal, we aren’t that connected’. WRONG. Clearly, its different from some markets to others – but did you know that the amount of computer users, who have more than five years experience of the internet, will very soon be nearly double that of just more than a year before? They are seasoned users who know where to look for stuff on the internet.

Consider that there are about seven million Mxit users, mostly from S outh Africa. Then there is Facebook and so on.

News spreads like wildfire. Instead of customers telling their 10 closest friends, they can now tell their closest few hundred thousand friends.

At the showcase talk I gave on the effect of social media on marketing, I was asked the question: ‘What happens if we go the social media route with our clients? Don’t we just open ourselves up to being slaughtered?’

The answer is no. Customers are talking anyway – you had better get involved in the conversation.

Here is a revolutionary idea: why not develop a value proposition that you can deliver, tell everyone about it and then actually deliver it – then there will be no need to lie!

Maybe people will then start talking about you differently.

email: pikesthinking@gmail.com