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The Cult of Marketing
What is a cynic? A man who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Oscar Wilde
If I were to tell you that you are a member of a cult, I bet you would react with shock, anger and possibly rage. If you made that same claim to any fringe group of fanatics, you would get pretty much the same reaction.
The main difference between their cult and yours, I would explain, is its size, their cult numbers in the hundreds, maybe even the thousands, while yours numbers in the billions. It is the cult of marketing.
Within this cult, the salesperson is the perfect pawn. There is perfect congruence between their motivation and that of their employer. Both are devoted to pushing more product out the door, both put their heart and soul into furthering the interests of the company.
Likewise, all of us, in one form or another, must participate in this game. We must view themselves as a product or a brand in order to bring our wares to market. No matter what our particular gift or expertise, we have no choice but to play the marketing game if we are to survive.
If you build homes, for instance, your success is not measured by the quality of homes you build, but by your ability to manage the expectations of your client. Similarly, dentists, doctors and accountants can no longer build a thriving practice on just excellence and hard work; they too must play the marketing game.
Such a game nullifies the value of our gifts, our passion, our intelligence, and our perseverance. The business owner weakens his position in the market if the level of his direct involvement in the creation of his product or service, outweighs the time he put into its promotion. Talking, rather than doing becomes the key success factor. So the talkers, the players if you will, steer the game in their favor, marginalizing the talents of the truly gifted.
We commonly speak about reinventing ourselves. Using the word reinvent in place of repackage is far more than a benign choice in terminology. It reflects an entire world view. It is as if, instead of being single unified beings, we are a bundle of interchangeable traits which could be mixed and matched in any way to suit the demands of the market.
The true tragedy of the game is that our view of others becomes skewed. The marketing cultists preach that we are to see everyone as either potential customers or beware of them as competition or salesmen who wish to sell to us. This skewed vision creates suspicion, and conditions us to automatically seek some ulterior motive in all our interactions, both business and personal. It crowds out authentic relationship, replacing it with shallow associations and alliances which are entirely motivated by self interest.
Wherever the marketer is king, talking a good game, looking good, being likeable, being sexy become the winning traits. Conversely, knowledge, integrity, fortitude, kindness, generosity and graciousness become nothing more than frills, mere anachronisms. They are the traits associated with those on the fringe, the losers, artists, intellectuals, the hasbeens. In fact, substance of any kind becomes a burden and an obstacle to progress. It becomes the ballast that holds you down and stifles your creativity while you concoct what you think your client expects.
Observe the marketing cult members at a cocktail party: the seasoned pros are all looking exuberant, healthy and successful, staying on message. Any authentic person placed in this environment will appear awkward and nervous, happy to have someone to talk with, even if it means listening to an endless monologue of bombastic self aggrandizement.
If that person commits the cardinal sin of introducing a topic they are passionate about they are met with glazed eyes and uneasiness. Success in this jungle is measured by how much fun we are; being perceived as intense, is the kiss of death.
Eventually, the market is inundated with hustlers who lack any objective, reliable criteria upon which to assess competence; instead, likeability and slickness become their key success criteria. In this way the consumer is unwittingly steered towards the con men and those who cannot sell are simply invisible.
Placed in this context, the success of investment bankers is easy to understand. In conveying an air of success and competence, their performance becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. The well tailored suit, the perfectly coifed hair and the confident even demeanor all convey success, competence and authority. This then forms the backdrop for what they are selling, the opportunity to be rich, successful and popular as they appear to be. By the time they actually make their pitch, the potential buyer is already sold. Who is the prospective buyer? Anybody in the room!
The ubiquitousness of this game forces us to choose between two options, one more repugnant than the other:
The first option is to bite the bullet and attempt to sell. Unfortunately, when it comes to mastering bluff and small talk, most of us are like fish out of water. Not being natural liars, we are no match for those naturally inclined to embellishment and hyperbole. This puts us between a rock and a hard place. Instead of plying our trade we spend our time going to sales courses in the hope that a few crumbs will fall our way.
Those who are not socially skilled have to ally themselves with a rainmaker. To add insult to injury, in the event that they are successful in finding such a hustler, they become the drone, the weaker party in the relationship. It is no surprise then to see that professional firms: management consulting, architectural, and legal, are controlled by the partners who are adept at bringing in the clients. Over time their confidence erodes and sooner or later they fall victim to despair, or some form of sedation.
Of course, this entire focus upon making the sale, with next to no thought upon delivering the product, is not sustainable in the long run.
The current banking crisis is a prime example the cult of marketing run amuck. The banks sold homeowners on the idea of buying a house with next to no security. They next sold the debt to fund managers and investors. They in turn repackaged it in combination with other assets and sold it to other investors.
Over time the volume of these investments, together with the increasingly creative ways in which they were combined, flooded the market with investments of indeterminable value. The high degree of integration between all the financial markets of across the world, took what began as a local problem, a number of failed mortgages in the US, and allowed it to infect the entire global investment and banking system.
If anything good does come out of this crisis it will be that we have been woken, albeit rudely, from our collective trance. Hopefully we can return to those things of sustaining value, kindness, graciousness, sincerity; and in so doing come to see ourselves as something more than consumers and producers bitterly struggling with one another for our place in the sun.
About the Author John Berling Hardy is author of the e-book "Have We Been
Played?- The Hidden Game Revealed." The insights contained in this series give you the Edge. To find out more about the carefully guarded secret shared by all those who enjoy power and prestige visit Have We Been Played.com.
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