The New Marketing and Having Something Cool To Talk About
December 26, 2007 – 3:33 pm
Blogger and cartoon pundit Hugh McLeod (that’s some of his excellent work) wrote a list explaining his take on “the new marketing” or “marketing 2.0″. The post is full of wisdom, but there’s one item that definitely resonated with me:
The most important asset in The New Marketing is “having something worth talking about”. This makes certain marketing people squeamish. A lot of us grew up in an era of flashy commercials for rather uninspiring products, and something in our DNA makes us believe that’s the proper way to go about things.
Early in the book, we’ve got quite a long section on this very topic. It’s an exceptionally common problem. The fact is that most marketers don’t have a Purple Cow of a product–they just have a plain, old Holstein. And it’s usually not their fault (except, you know, they chose that company to work for or launch).
We address this in the context of manufacturing memes that can help make ordinary products worth talking about:
So, that’s the truth. Sometimes it hurts. But before you put down this book, leave marketing for good and become a moose breeder, read on. Even if you don’t have a remarkable product, and you can’t help someone else build something wonderful, don’t despair. Dry those crying eyes and make a meme.
Hey, as it turns out, this section of the book is one of our sample chapters (PDF). You can read it for free, if you’re so inclined.
It’d be super-cool to get one of Hugh’s cartoons into version 2.0 of the book. I’ve added that to the list of edits, and will ask him about it in the new year.
Tags: cartoon pundit, hugh mcleod, new marketing, ordinary, purple cow
