The Challenge

Space Invaders (the Death of Conversation)

Published by Esteban Glas on August 5th, 2009 | This post lacks all category except for: Marketing

Markets are conversations. Then Marketers shout. Thus Marketers screw up conversations.

The logic is overwhelming.

10 years ago, a nice book called The Cluetrain Manifesto was published. It changed everything.

Wait.

That needs rephrasing.

10 years ago, a nice book called The Cluetrain Manifesto was published. Some of us thought it would change everything. (In my case it was the first Marketing book I ever read, back in 2000 -in English and while I studied music and worked for a construction company).

The book, in case you live in a cave, starts with 95 theses. The first one reads:

Markets are conversations.

What a revelation! So obvious. In the era of Facebook and Twitter, the time of “online friends”, now that the blogs raised and died it is apparently so true.

True, but wrong.

(Yes, I love contradictions)

Marketers have invaded spaces where people lurk (it is the means to the end, right?). They have done so ever since the advent of mass media. When radio become popular advertising surged as almost natural. Then came TV.

Of course those types of media inherently go in one direction; so if someone did not like the presence of  publicity there wasn’t much they could do.

Then came the internet.

And something seemed to be different. The advent of the social web brought a promise of a different type of Marketing. One that would listen. One that would talk looking into the customer’s eye. One that would be a conversation, much like Cluetrain proposed.

And then us (marketers) screwed it up. Conversations didn’t quite have the impact we were used to with mass media. We needed more bang for the buck. We wanted more. We started shouting again. We went back from conversation to publicity.

But Marketers are not the only ones to be blamed, the recipients share part of the shame. Both in an active and a passive way.

The public is to blame because it allows their spaces to be invaded by vacuous marketing messaging.  The most bluntly example of this becomes apparent with the usage of client-generated content to power marketing campaigns. This would be more acceptable if consent were not tacit but deliberate, but that is usually not the case. Maybe letting advertisements into our own private spaces is a price too high to pay to use many services.

The audience is also to blame because many have tried to take advantage of the few marketers that actually tried to do things differently, of the couple of crazy dudes that actually tried to talk. When I read news that state that a mommy blogger tried to bribe George Smith (Online Marketer) for a pair of crocs at BlogHer I feel saddened.

Thus when a Marketer  tries to have a conversation this comes out as the result.

Yet that is deserved. Seth Godin’s phrase “all marketers are liars” still applies. Or should I say: Applies today more than ever before.

In the mass media reign days lies were openly displayed and people “bought” them somewhat knowingly. Today things have become more dense, obscure and mangled. Most marketers have a discourse that says that they are part of the conversation, (“hey we even have a corporate blog!”), they find alternative ways to let the customers know about products and services (“we just placed a banner on facebook and MSN!”) and have youth and massive appeal with lower than average investment (“we have this viral video you’ll love”) .

It is all lies. At least on most cases.

Viral videos are pushed to front pages using fake accounts and bots. Advertising, even on the internet, is just that: friggin advertising, not a “new way to deliver the message”. Yes, even if you publish your Ad on a social network, it is still an ad. Most corporate blogs delete anything resembling  negative comments; so much for open conversation. Not to mention the shallowness of the content and the fact that PR firms handle that instead of the actual, flesh and bone employees.

Metrics are inflated on a daily basis. Results are overrated. Everything is false.

Phony Social Network users, fake fans, non-existing facts and figures, pay-per-post. So much for transparency. So much for conversation.

I don’t know about you, but when I talk I don’t shout. Shouting defeats the purpose.

The marketers excuse for such type of behaviors is that, amidst so much noise, if they don’t go above the mean murmur they would pass by inadvertently. If that is the case maybe what you are saying is not that interesting. Screaming about it is not going to make it any more appealing (or true, or conversational).

But then again, coming up with relevant content and doing thinks that can go “viral” just due to  to their own weight and creativity requires thinking, inspiration and hard work. Those things are not readily available.

Thus it is Mediocre (social) Marketers and irresponsible customers who have killed conversation for the rest of us.

Thanks, much appreciated.

Now, lets cut the crap and lets all just say what we are really doing.

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