Why Marketing is broken

I came across John Quelch’s article named “How to Market in a Recession” this morning. He tries to dispense some marketing tactics that we, as companies, can use to survive this recession. There are some good points in the article, but what drew my attention was the following paragraph:

2. Focus on family values. When economic hard times loom, we tend to retreat to our village. Look for cozy hearth-and-home family scenes in advertising to replace images of extreme sports, adventure and rugged individualism. Zany humor and appeals on the basis of fear are out. Greeting card sales, telephone use and discretionary spending on home furnishings and home entertainment will hold up well, as uncertainty prompts us to stay at home but also stay connected with family and friends.

This is probably the most insulting thing I’ve heard all year. I think this is actually one of the main reasons we got to where we are today. We focused on creating this artificial persona called “the brand” and shoved it down people’s throats. And we did it with the utmost lack of honesty.

It makes sense that our values are “adventure and rugged individualism” today and “cozy hearth-and-home family” tomorrow. We drew people into a trap to make them buy any way we could. It did not matter that it was not sustainable. That the whole process was broken. And that’s how we got to where we are today.

But that’s not the issue. The issue is: do we treat the illness we have today with the same poison that we uses to start that illness in the first place? Or do we do something radically different? My bet is on the latter.

The time for fake promises and foced associations might well be over. It is now time to simply and honestly engage with the people that we insulted by calling them “consumers“. It’s time to just have sincere conversations, to get together with them and try to fix whatever is broken. And it’s time to listen and we might just be amazed at what they have to say. Because in the end, they’re just people who want to be respected and who want to talk to real people that really listen and care.

After all, “Your call is important to us“.