Marketing vs The People

In the process of catching up with my RSS feed backlog I came across Jon Udell’s post and video clip re David Weinberger’s C-SPAN rant. Thanks for the effort Jon – the .avi version worked just fine for me.

Anyway, it’s interesting timing because I’m currently in the process of writing a guest column for Marketing Magazine about the relationship between marketers and journalists/editors.

One of Weinberger’s comments has fed my thinking. He argues that the value of product feedback from real live users, posted on newsgroups and the like, greatly exceeds that of the trite marketing messages presented by companies on billboard-style web sites. The implication here is many marketers fall into the trap of dehumanising their message. Cheap, throwaway marketing lines that don’t underscore a real value proposition are simply ignored. Or worse, they destroy a company’s credibility by betraying ignorance about real customer needs.

And from a journalist’s perspective, the marketer is further alienating an already suspicious, jaded hack.