I’ve finished my diploma at SAIT and I was lucky enough to be hired right out of school! I now work for Kayak as a social media marketer. I’m doing and learning a lot of new things. It’s great!
I’ve also continued to think about marketing and where it fits into communities. Marketing is just like anything else in a community: it can be welcomed in the right doses, and it’s abhorred in the wrong ones. Marketing is up against a significant amount of general distrust. Here are three things people say to me when they hear about my diploma, and why I think these assumptions are mistaken.
Marketers are all “Popular Kids”
I’ve heard this so many times that I wonder if there’s just one super popular asshole going around making us all look bad. Marketing is made up of all kinds of different people, just like anywhere else. I certainly don’t recall being terribly popular! I’m also not dishonest, or a smooth talker. I’m mostly awkward.
Marketers want to put me in a box.
I love being properly marketed to. It delights me. I’m currently loving and looking forward to every promotion for the new season of Arrested Development I can lay my hungry eyes on. Arrested Development has its market in a single box: Arrested Development fans! It’s easier to use the 80/20 principle than it is to try to net people through a demographic profiling and market penetration strategy.
Marketers want to show me stuff I don’t need or want!
Marketers want to tempt you with things you don’t need, of course. I don’t need a lot of the things in my home, but I sure do like having them! Things you don’t want, on the other hand? That’s a waste of marketing money. People seeing ads they don’t want to see isn’t exactly a win – it means future marketing needs to overcome the negative sentiments you’ve probably shared with others. This is why nobody buys head-on except as a joke stocking stuffer. At least, I hope you don’t buy head-on.
Those are some of my basic thoughts when people say these things to me. I hope you enjoyed applying this post directly to your forehead! And I hope you try to understand we’re in the business of marketing, not misery.
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