All Marketers are Liars

I just watched an interesting speech, "All Marketers are Liars", by Seth Godin. With an entertaining and humorous presentation, Godin revealed his thoughts to Google on the importance of creating buzz among consumers. Within the first eight minutes of the speech, Godin talked about how signifcant a role that word of mouth plays in marketing. What really sells a product, is the consumer who tells their friends about it. Word-of-mouth is the fastest and most efficient way that people become aware of certain products. Right away a trust is formed with the consumer and the product, because the consumer trusts their friend's opinion. With this trust, the consumer decides to buy the product- to start believing in the product.

Throughout the whole speech, Godin gave specific examples on people talking about products. He mentioned Fancy Feast, a rather disgusting form of cat food (if you ask me), and how people will voluntarily pay 5 times more for this brand of cat food than normal dry food. The reason? It's not for the cats; it's for the people. Fancy Feast has successfully created an image that people believe in. A cat can survive on any type of cat food, but people buy Fancy Feast for their own satisfaction. They know that they are trying to provide "the best" for their cat, and that's what makes them happy.

Godin told Google that people want a story they can tell themselves. They want to tell their friends about the cool or interesting things they have found. He threw out an example about Tiffany's. "Tiffany's gives the jewelry away for free; the box is what they charge for!" Godin made a solid point; people want the story behind the box. Of course, people could go to a different jewelry store and perhaps buy the same thing, but they wouldn't have that small blue box- the blue box that gave people something to talk about.

He presented a challenge to Google by saying, "If you're going to do something, is it worth talking about?" I thought this speech was very educational and interesting. It proved the point that a product's best marketers are the consumers themselves. I realized that a huge part of why I buy certain products is because of the buzz my friends create about them. Godin's speech to Google can open eyes to what is important in a marketing plan. You need to make something worth talking about.