Thursday, April 19, 2012

Entering the conversation

     The chapters on PR, ads, marcom, pricing, positioning -- hell, all of them -- in The Marketing-as Usual Manual of Strategy and Tactics need to be redone. It’s not because the war has shifted from the air to the ground, or because now we’re fighting guerrillas instead of massed troops. No, marketing-as-usual thinks it’s fighting a war when in fact the "enemy" is having a party: "Hey, dude, put on this Hawaiian shirt, grab some chips and dip, and join in. But first you gotta loosen your grip on that assault weapon."
     Here’s some advice on entering the conversation: Loosen up. Lighten up. And shut up for a while. Listen for a change. Marketing-as-usual used to be able to insert its messages into the mind of the masses with one swing of its mighty axe. Now messages get exploded within minutes. "Spin" gets noticed and scorned. Parodies spread ad campaigns faster than any multimillion-dollar advertising blitz. In short: the Internet routes around a-holes.
So, enter the conversation and do it right.

     Source: The Cluetrain Manifesto: The end of business as usual (Rick LevineChristopher LockeDoc SearlsDavid Weinberger) e-book

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