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Better Marketing Through Modern Mind-Control
There are two kinds of marketing: Direct Marketing and Brand
Marketing. Direct marketing targets wallets. Branding is about hearts
and minds.
For example, I sell a variety of internet marketing tools, but you won't
see them mentioned here. That's because the brand I'm marketing by
writing and distributing articles is Linda Cox, not any single product. If
I can hook you into the Linda Cox brand, then the sales (and more)
will follow.
If it works, thousands will visit my website and I can sell banners
there. Then millions will subscribe to my ezine and I can sell ads there.
Then everyone will want to be identified with my unique brand of
humor and insight so they'll buy body oils and spark plugs and beach
umbrellas with my name on them.
Ultimately, of course, anytime you pass the Golden Arches your oh-so
branded children will screech for a Happy Meal just to get the free
"Linda Cox: Queen of the Online Marketers" doll inside.
DIFFERENT BY DESIGN
Ads designed for branding are cool. They don't plead and beg and
cajole, they just sit there. They may be loud, but in a very smug way
because they already got what they want. They may tell you where
to click or who to call, but they don't really care if you do. You saw
them... that's enough. An impression was made.
Think Absolut Vodka.
Direct sale ads have a real do-or-die attitude that can make them a
bit annoying and undignified, especially when surrounded by their
mellower counterparts. By their directives shall ye know them: Call
Now! Order Now! Click Now!
Think infomercials.
You can't track a branding campaign like you can a direct sales
campaign, but you don't have to. You don't need to prove that an ad
performed its function when its function was to just sit there and look
cool.
CHECK YOUR LEFT HEMISPHERE AT THE DOOR
Modern marketers don't even condescend to sit at the same tables as
accountants anymore. The battle is over and creative excess won.
Sales are out. Customers are in.
THE NEW CUSTOMER
Say it's your friend's birthday and you buy her a Mikey t-shirt with the
logo of the Mikey Running Shoe company emblazoned across the
front. What does that make you? A Mikey person? No. You're just
some putz who bought something. You're irrelevant... a statistical
aberration.
Frankly, Mikey would rather have their shirt back.
But say you buy ALL your friends gifts with the Mikey logo? You don't
even have to think about it, you just do it. Now you're not an
aberration, you're a customer, and that's a whole different level of
commitment.
You pay money to be a walking billboard for Mikey. You strive to
represent the Mikey ideal. You craft your self-image based on the
models and sports stars in Mikey ads (even if you're a pudgy smoker
with a Twinkie jones).
IMAGE IS
But your adoption of the Mikey image runs far deeper. You're not just
a Mikey customer, you're a Mikey PERSON.
If someone bad-mouths Mikey, you set them straight. If someone
speaks well of a non-Mikey product, you respond with autonomic
contempt. If someone converts to Mikey-hood, you embrace them
into the fold.
If it were a cult, it would be called programming. If it were an
ideology, it would be called brainwashing. If it were a religion, it would
be called a conversion.
But it's a shoe. It's called branding.
THE NEW WORLD
In any field, there are two brands and a bunch of off-brands or
wannabes. Democrat and Republican are brands. Libertarian, Green
Party and whoever else are merely Other.
(It's a Yin Yang thing. Note how Democracy is diminished without
Communism for counterpoint?)
In the new world order, stores and websites are clubs, brands are
families, and a person is defined simply as the combination of several
dozen brand settings, like toggle switches on a motherboard: Coke
(not Pepsi). Chevy (not Ford). Burger King (not McDonalds). Shaken
(not stirred). Catholic (not Protestant). White Sox (not Cubs).
And is there ever any substantial difference between the two main
contenders in any given category?
Depends who you ask.
Copyright © Linda Cox (J.A.M.G.) was actually a real-world corporate marketer
for many years before going on the net without a net. Now she's Just Another Marketing Guru.
More Linda! http://www.LindaCox.com. Reprinted with permission.
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