We are bombarded with advertising from all angles every day. Television. Radio. Billboards. Magazines. Web. Our lives are saturated with messages telling us what detergent to buy or why we need a Snuggie (for our dog).
In his book Purple Cow (which is absolutely filled with truth and will certainly be mentioned in many posts to come), Seth Godin points out that advertising today isn’t as effective as it was 30 years ago. Marketing an ordinary product with tons of great ads doesn’t cut it any more.
If you want to sell something, you must have a remarkable product. You can’t just create something ordinary and market it until the cows come home (no pun intended).
Companies can’t sell us anymore. Friends sell us. Word of mouth is stronger than any Palm Pre ad campaign with creepy ladies telling us about going with the flow. If my friend tells me to read a book, I’ll probably pick it up. If Blackberry shows me a U2 concert, I’ll probably just get confused. I’m going to trust someone I know over The Man. Companies give out hollow hopes like strangers in white vans pass out candy.
Organizations aren’t the only ones over hyping and under delivering. People do it every day. Someone claims to be the best at something or puts on a show depending on who is watching.
Say for example one of your “friends” on Facebook posts an unusually deep thought or surprises you in some way by what they say in a conversation among mutual friends. Say they intrigue you enough through their words that you decide to ask for a chat about life over a grande cup of over-priced, fair-trade coffee.
Hypothetically, you get together. Say you spend time with someone you didn’t know very well, a mere acquaintance. If he tells you what he’s all about before you meet (or more likely, you read his profile and make rash generalizations and wild assumptions based on the books he’s read, the shows he watches, and the pictures he’s taken), and builds himself up to be something he’s not, you’re going to see right through him when you actually get together. It may take a bit of time, but the marketing façade will fade away once you get to know him—once you spend time with the real product.
You can no longer just say what you are about and expect people to believe it—you have to show them who you are through your everyday actions. If you want to influence people, you’ve got to be remarkable. People will start telling other people about you (in a good way) when you do things that are out of the ordinary—when you gravitate toward the edges of what is thought of as normal.
Don’t hype yourself. Live a life worth talking about. Be remarkable, and people will notice.