All Marketers are Liars - Topic 6

1) When talking about Yahoo auctions, what did Seth Godin mean by 'billion dollar decisions do not have anything to do with technology'?
Seth Godin meant that word of mouth is the key element to success, that is why eBay works, people all over the world use eBay, and word of mouth has been the fastest way it has grown. Seth Godin states that 'Nietzsche is hard to understand and risky to spread, so it moves slowly among people willing to invest the time. Numa Numa, on the other hand, spreads like a toxic waste spill because it was so transparent, reasonably funny and easy to share. Notice that ideas never spread because they are important to the originator.'


2) What has story telling got to do with cat food?
Marketors are telling a story with their product. A cat will not care if the food they eat is prepared a certain way, such as marinated or grilled, there owners on the other hand may see it as spoiling them or "getting them the best". It is all in the wording, and this is how marketers are able to sell a product to consumers, the more appealing the name the more likely consumers will buy it... its like at the car wash... you can have the standard (boring) wash or the super ultimate deluxe wash... both washes basically do the same job, wash your car, one just sounds more appealing, it may offer 2 or 3 more rinses or products but at a high price. people should just wait for it to rain and save money, the environment and most imporantly water.

3) Explain the concept of funnel marketing, and how would 'flipping the funnel' help the marketing of a product?
Funnel marketing like mass marketing... its like telling a bunch of people about a product who then go on to tell another bunch of people and the cycle continues. Flipping the funnel is when turning the funnel 90 degrees into a megaphone which allows more people to here about the product.


4) What does the term 'remarkable' mean in the context of purple cows?
Its something that stands out, something that you dont see everyday. In a marketing sense with so many similar products on the market it is important for a companies product to stand out from the competition... the purple cow in a sea of brown. Seth says that marketors need to create products that are "on the edge" this is because if it is people will wait in lines sometimes for days at a time. The apple i-phone is a good example, many consumers spent the night waiting to get a hold of one.

As eMarketers we all want 'happy surfers'. Godin talks about the fashion/permission complex. He lists four parts to the fashion/complex.
1) Make it (the message) worth listening to
2) Tell it to the people who want to hear
3) Tell their friends
4) Get permission to tell about your next fashion.
Can you think of an example from your experience that demonstrates the fashion/permission complex?
Social networking web sites, it seems lately that every other week there is something new, myspace was superceded by facebook and now twitter seems to be the new craze