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Trust and marketing never belong in the same sentence. Marketing is the art of inconsequential "pushing of the truth" and frivolous claims. It's the art of shov

by pluc 7y ago

Trust and marketing never belong in the same sentence. Marketing is the art of inconsequential "pushing of the truth" and frivolous claims. It's the art of shoving a sub-par product in your face over a relevant product.

gk1 7y ago
> Marketing is the art of inconsequential "pushing of the truth" What would you call it when someone, say, the product creator, speaks the truth about a product to get the word out? That would fall under "marketing." "Marketing" is as general a term as "programming." There are all sorts of bad things accomplished with programming, but I think you'd agree that generalizing all of "programming" as something negative would be ridiculous.
- ravenstine 7y ago
  No, it's not. Marketing as a concept is totally divorced from whether or not its message is truthful because marketing doesn't measure anything. It's propaganda, whether or not the audience understands that or whether the creator is being honest. The audience has to effectively use a side-channel to figure out if a piece of marketing accurately reflects the product. Often times it doesn't, or at least not completely, because if you don't lie or exaggerate to some extent, your product will lose out to the competitor who makes bolder claims, uses brighter colors, and is purposefully less specific in their message. The best that marketing can do to convey trust is to use social proof. After all, if everyone is using Brand X, it must be good, right? Of course, social proof can be faked, exaggerated, or bought with a lot of money, as is commonly done.
  - gk1 7y ago
    I think you're talking about "advertising," which is != "marketing." To continue with my analogy, it's like saying "spam is bad, therefore all email is bad, and email is created by programming, therefore all programming is bad."
aantix 7y ago
Your assessment of “marketing” which appears to encompass all products ever spoken of, is so general, it’s useless. Not a single product that was spoken about had a genuine impact on the buyer? Not a single product actually worked as advertised?
TheOperator 7y ago
It's really not and there are absolutely cases where marketers have to market a superior product over a sub-par product. A lot of the art in marketing is ending up in front of the consumers for whom your product IS actually relevant. If a superior product fails to sell over a sub-par product then the marketing was probably crap.

by pluc 7y ago

gk1 7y ago

> Marketing is the art of inconsequential "pushing of the truth" What would you call it when someone, say, the product creator, speaks the truth about a product to get the word out? That would fall under "marketing." "Marketing" is as general a term as "programming." There are all sorts of bad things accomplished with programming, but I think you'd agree that generalizing all of "programming" as something negative would be ridiculous.

ravenstine 7y ago
No, it's not. Marketing as a concept is totally divorced from whether or not its message is truthful because marketing doesn't measure anything. It's propaganda, whether or not the audience understands that or whether the creator is being honest. The audience has to effectively use a side-channel to figure out if a piece of marketing accurately reflects the product. Often times it doesn't, or at least not completely, because if you don't lie or exaggerate to some extent, your product will lose out to the competitor who makes bolder claims, uses brighter colors, and is purposefully less specific in their message. The best that marketing can do to convey trust is to use social proof. After all, if everyone is using Brand X, it must be good, right? Of course, social proof can be faked, exaggerated, or bought with a lot of money, as is commonly done.
- gk1 7y ago
  I think you're talking about "advertising," which is != "marketing." To continue with my analogy, it's like saying "spam is bad, therefore all email is bad, and email is created by programming, therefore all programming is bad."

aantix 7y ago

Your assessment of “marketing” which appears to encompass all products ever spoken of, is so general, it’s useless. Not a single product that was spoken about had a genuine impact on the buyer? Not a single product actually worked as advertised?

TheOperator 7y ago

It's really not and there are absolutely cases where marketers have to market a superior product over a sub-par product. A lot of the art in marketing is ending up in front of the consumers for whom your product IS actually relevant. If a superior product fails to sell over a sub-par product then the marketing was probably crap.