[Off-Topic] All Marketers Are Liars

Like all of Seth Godin’s writing, this 2005 book is also fun to read (in my case, listen to). Despite being old, it outlines an interesting model of marketing.

In short, there are 2 parts I particularly like: the first, where he argues that marketing based on feature checklists and bullet-point comparisons is nonsense. The worst kind of marketing is those where you see feature comparisons against other products — things like “lower prices,” “surveys show consumers prefer us,” “we have more performance,” “we have more security,” “we have item X that the other doesn’t.” All of that is nonsense and typically constitutes terrible marketing.

The best kind of marketing is telling a story. Consumers don’t buy products because they check 8 out of 10 boxes better than the competition. Consumers buy stories. Specifically in our IT world, that’s why many of us buy Apple. They don’t sell simple features — they sell a lifestyle, an interesting story. We don’t care about minor factors like price, market share, or things like that. The Apple world has the Cult of the Mac. Does that make us fanboys? Absolutely yes. Just like whoever buys a Mercedes SUV is a fanboy, because if the mundane goal is simply getting a passenger from point A to point B, a Mercedes isn’t better than a Volkswagen. Just as if the mundane goal is satisfying hunger, eating good meat at Rubaiyat isn’t better than grabbing something at McDonald’s.

Good marketing only exists if there’s, first, a good product/service — and the way to sell it is with a good story, not a list of items. Why isn’t this obvious? In checklist terms, for example, the iPhone is one of the worst smartphones around, especially if you consider the first version. A mere 2MP camera, no Bluetooth audio, no FM radio or digital TV built in, no dual SIM cards, no replaceable battery. All the hallmarks of a loser device. Yet it was on track to eat into the market share of the mighty Nokia. Why? Because the product itself is excellent at what it sets out to do, and the story behind Apple’s and the Mac’s DNA is incredibly powerful.

And before it starts sounding like we’re talking about “similar” products differing only in “price” — that’s not it: you need — as Seth likes to say — a purple cow, a truly great product/service. That’s a prerequisite. If you don’t even have that, don’t bother trying to sell it; it’s a waste of time.

The other thing Seth points out in this book that should also be obvious: you should never try to beat the competition by improving on the same features they have. Losing marketing is precisely when you just copy what the other has and add “we’re cheaper,” “we’re faster,” “we have this item they don’t,” blah blah blah. You only have a chance of beating the competition by being different and having a story the others don’t have.

//www.youtube.com/embed/AZnYRaQfjK4

This brings me to myself. It’s a small case, but I don’t recall having talked about it. When 37signals made their book Getting Real available online, I was certain it should be the first material for the Brazilian Rails community. At the time there wasn’t much Ruby or Rails material in Portuguese — some thought I should have gone after that first: translating reference guides, tutorials and other things to help programmers get started.

But I was certain it should be the opposite. I wanted to translate Getting Real because it would set the “tone” of the community, its philosophy, values and pragmatism — at least that was my wishful thinking. So, on November 13, 2006 I made the first call-to-arms and, after excellent collective work from the community, we were able to finish on March 26, 2007. I know not everyone read that book, but I believe it helped inspire the first Rails entrepreneurs in Brazil.

Many people don’t understand why people like us choose Ruby on Rails. Many waste time making comparison lists trying to demonstrate why anything else is better than Rails. And they’re not wrong, because the comparisons are typically factual: Ruby is the slowest interpreter of all, Rails doesn’t have various features that others have, it doesn’t support half the commercial databases that others do. Yet everyone is wrong if they think factual lists are sufficient. Rails is good enough, excellent in the areas where it matters, and it doesn’t sell itself through checklists: it sells itself through its story, through the story of the community’s luminaries, through the story of startups that grew with Rails, through the Agile and Pragmatic philosophy that grew alongside it; and so on.

Good ideas spread fast. All of us who try to spread ideas are essentially marketers. And to close, I’ll leave the floor to Seth Godin explaining why marketing is too important to be left only to the marketing department: