All Marketers Are Liars - The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World

Seth Godin

Summary

• Telling stories?

  • The only thing they have in common is that no one buys facts. They buy a story
  • It doesn't matter one bit whether something is actually better or faster or more efficient. What matter is what the consumer believes.
  • one-dimentional message isn't enough. every message changes the marketplace.
  • the reason marketing seems irrational and inconsistent and faddy is that it is.
  • positioning in the world of the story is a longer, subtler, more involved process.
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• Great Stories? - the source of growth and profit

  • A great story is ture. Not true because it's factual, but true because it's consistent and authentic.
  • Great stories make a promise. The promise is bold and audacious and not just very good - it's exceptioal or it's not worth listening to.
  • Great stories are trusted. as a result, no marketer succeeds in telling a story unless he has earned the credibility to tell that story.
  • Great stories are subtle . the less a marketer spells out, the more powerful the story becomes.
  • Great stories happen fast. first impressions are far more powerful than we give them credit for. They sync right up with her expectations.
  • Great stories don't appeal to logic, but they often appeal to your sense.
  • Great stories are rarely aimed at everyone. if you need to water down your story to appeal to everyone, it will appeal to no one. tiny audience spreads the story.
  • Great stories don't contradict themselves.
  • And most of all, great stories agree with our worldview. the best sotries don't teach people anything new. insead, the best stories agree with what the audience already believes and makes the members aof the audience feel smart and secure when reminded how right they were in the first place. 

   

• Marketers
  • Marketers aren't really liars. they are just storytellers. successful marketers are just the providers of stories that consumers choos to belive. 
  • Marketers profit because consumers buy what they want, not what they need. Needs are practical and objective, wants are irrational and subjective. The path to profitable growth is in satisfying wants, not needs.
  • No marketers can get a person to do something without his active participation. But this complicity doesn't absolve marketers of the responsibility that comes with the awesome power we've got to tell and spread stories. the question you have to ask yourself is this: what are you going to do with the power.
• Marketing 
  • Marketing is about spreading ideas, and spreading ideas is the single most important output of our civilization. Spreading the ideas behind the medicine is more important than inventing the medicine itself.
  • how marketing works 
    • step1. their worldview and frames got there before you did
    • step2. people only notice the new and then make a guess
    • step3. first impressions starts the story
    • step4. great marketers tell stories we believe
    • step5. marketers with authenticity thrive
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• Lessons from Cases 

  • Gerge Riedel Wine Case 

    • The reason the wine tastes better is that people believe it should. This makes sense, of course. Taste is subjective. Gerge Riedel makes your wine taste better by telling you a story.

     

  • Puma Case

    • Consumers covet things that they believe will save them time or make them prettier or richer.
    • She was imagining how she'd look when she put them on.
    • Stories made her feel special. Stories (not ideas, not features, not benefits) are what spread from person to person 

     

  • Kiehl's Case 
    • It wasn't Kiehl doing the marketing - it was his customers. Kiehl's told a story, and the sutomers told the lie to themselves and to their friends.

   

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