The Evolution of Marketing:
From Promotion to Attraction.

Before mass media, marketing consisted primarily of word-of-mouth endorsements. For hundreds of years the word got around fast about the best craftsman in any given village– from furniture makers to bakers or blacksmiths. People told their friends and family about something good, and off they went to buy it, to then share the good news with their friends and family and so on.

Enter the heyday of mass marketing, arriving during the last half of the 20th century. In this era of increasing prosperity, growing consumer demand, and the power of television and mass media – marketers simply advertised directly to consumers and boosted their sales as a result.  This approach worked equally well for both consumer and business-to-business (B2B) products and services.

Think of American Airlines (“Something Special in the Air”); EF Hutton (“When EF Hutton talks, people listen”) Chase Manhattan Bank (“Profit from the Experience”) or Federal Express (“When it absolutely, positively needs to be there overnight”) Businesses of all sorts created intrusive messages that talked at people by entertaining them, scaring them, seducing them or being so omnipresent the messages were simply impossible to ignore. 

From a strategic standpoint marketers were trained to promote one of four points of difference: Better, different, cheaper or new. But in the hyper-competitive global marketplace, none of these differences was typically sustainable for the long-term. 

Nonetheless, if you had a sharp ad agency making well produced TV spots, and the financial resources to blast the message out there on TV, on the radio, in print ads and outdoor billboards, the sky was the limit on growth and building market share. This was the Promotional approach to marketing. It worked great until it didn’t.

In the mid- 1990s the internet came on the scene in a big way. Word-of-mouth was back in a new, powerful—and virtual--way, enabled by the ability of influential new networks that allowed remarkable ideas to spread through the population at lightning fast speed.

The web also disrupted traditional media. That business model had TV networks, radio stations, magazines, and newspapers creating editorial content or programming and then offering it to people along with paid advertising messages. People had to put up with the advertising to get the content they wanted, and still do to some degree today.

Today, via the web, consumers can access nearly all the content they want, when they want it, and usually without commercial interruption. Think of Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu and Spotify.

Marketing pundit Seth Godin was way ahead of the curve when he outlined this transformational marketing revolution in his book “Purple Cow” way back in 2002. He set up a paradigm that still hold true today:

The Old Marketing Rule:

Create safe / ordinary products and combine them with great marketing.

The New Marketing Rule:

Create remarkable products / services that the right people will seek out.

The new approach is known today as attraction-based marketing. It starts with a remarkable product or service. What is meant by “remarkable?” It’s something that people will be willing to remark about on social media, sharing with their friends. It talks to people, and invites a conversation. Think of it as amplified word-of-mouth.

As Godin stated “Something remarkable is worth talking about. Worth noticing. Exceptional. New. Interesting. It’s a purple cow. Boring stuff is invisible. It’s a brown cow.”

Savvy companies should still start with a sound marketing strategy: clearly defined targets, well-articulated value propositions - expressed as benefits - with plenty of reasons for people to believe the offer. Framing a “brand personality” can also help make your business more attractive.

Then marketers need to create “content” – this can be a simple website, blog posts, images, tweets and videos that quickly express your offer and reflect your brand. Put them out there on social media (or even traditional paid advertising), then use data to analyze which offers work by attracting people (and making sales), and those that don’t. Think of all marketing activity as testable propositions.

A “purple cow” in the investment management sector is manifested in the explosive growth of socially responsible investing. SRI directs investments towards companies that both provide a financial return and foster positive social change and / or environmental good.

A leader in SRI is American Century with its “Prosper with a Purpose” positioning and their promise of “Impact the Future. With every investment dollar, you make a choice for a better world.” The company also direct a portion of its profits to fund biomedical research as well as a strong commitment to helping non-profit organizations build? strong communities through the American Century Investments Foundation.

This leads us back to the power of attraction vs. promotion.

Ever wonder how Uber and AirBnB became multi-billion dollar companies? They had a remarkable idea. They delivered an exceptional consumer experience. They provided better value that met a need. They used technology to disrupt their business sectors. People really liked the services and told their friends about them. They attracted customers. Neither one ever spent a dollar on traditional marketing.

Now that’s remarkable.