The Marketing Experience: Shifting Our Focus From Attention To Alignment
There’s a stark contrast between what can be conveyed through ‘marketing’ and what is imbued within ‘the marketing experience’. The former transfers information while the latter creates tangible anchors within ones’ memory.
And what is “branding” if not the desire to exist beyond the present?
The Marketing Experience is a singular event, or series of events, a part of the promotional process that define the impressions of those brought within it.
As is in the courtship process, impressions — conscious or subconscious — are formed by what is emphasized and what’s left unsaid.
People make purchasing decisions based on how they feel and then look for the logic needed to justify those decisions. Facts only justify, feelings sell.
Judgements are made intuitively, not pragmatically.
“Nothing is as important as you think it is, while you’re thinking about it.” Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast & Slow
Yet, in a world where ‘binge-watching’ has become commonplace, marketing executives still question the validity of investing into campaign narratives.
Lest we forget, that the first stories published to a wall are still a viable transference of their creator’s story some 32,000 years later.
Marketing is ephemeral, shared experiences transcend time.
“Human minds yield helplessly to the suction of story. No matter how hard we concentrate, no matter how deep we dig in our heels, we just can’t resist the gravity of alternate worlds.” ~ Jonathan Gottschall, The Storytelling Animal
When immersed within your story, the audience is granted more than a chronicle of your journey; they experience your character by viewing the world from your perspective. For a brief moment in time, they become you.
“Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell.” ~ Seth Godin
In 2014, stifled by the creative limitations of speaking within my clients’ voices, I stepped away from my marketing agency to explore my own.
Making no attempt to develop an audience or catalyze a conversion, I committed myself to publishing content that accomplished a simple goal:
‘Teach one lesson by sharing the experience in which it was learned’.
There would be no bullet points or timely coverage about current trends, just a collection of stories sharing the lessons life had offered me thus far.
The first attempt — a 2,314 word story recounting my $1.70 experimental advertising campaign — drove 450K people to my site in the first 72 hours of its existence and the aftershock in the press garnered 7 million impressions.
Kevin Spacey’s sermon rushed over me with new meaning,
“The audience has spoken. They want stories. They’re dying for them. They’re rooting for us to give them the right thing. And they will talk about it, binge on it, carry it with them on the bus and to the hairdresser, force it on their friends, tweet, blog, facebook, make fan pages, silly gifs, and God knows what else about it. And all we have to do, is give it to them.”
And so they did.
I was dubbed a “marketing pro” by AdWeek in 2014, credited as being a “media manipulator” in the Observer in 2015, and later deemed to possess the “magic formula for going viral” by Forbes in 2016…
All because of the same 2,314 words sharing my favorite drinking story.
It’s been three years and I’ve finally submitted to the reality that I’ll forever be known as “the guy who pranked his roommate with Facebook ads.”
It was as Scott Stratten memorably declared to me while I sat front row for one of his edu-taining rants,
“You want word of mouth? Do things worth talking about.”
The video of my dachshund’s obstinance was also one of those ‘things’ and it’s been viewed more than twenty million times… the animated gif made of his puppy eyes has been seen an additional one hundred million times. It’s made me a few grand from YouTube ads and licensing deals, but it wasn’t, as Blake Jamieson would say, “the fulcrum to my career” like the prank was.
These ‘things’ worth talking about must be anchored deep into the heart of your brand in order for viral to convert or be later leveraged into conversion.
When interviewed, Bobby Edwards, CEO of Squatty Potty, said his investor, Shark Tank’s Lori Grenier, advised against their spending of $110,000 to produce a (hopefully) viral video. She thought it was “too risky”.
Heeding Grenier’s advice, Edwards took a traditional approach and pushed broad messaging, but it was quickly obvious; something wasn’t working.
Compelled to gamble, Edwards asked the Harmon Brothers — a production agency with oddly relevant experience talking about poop — “how much can we spend and still break even?” Edwards said of the resulting video,
“I thought the unicorn video had the recipe to be a viral success, but I didn’t know it would become a phenomenon.”
If you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t seen the Pooping Unicorn…
Cloaked within irreverence is the catalyst for a paradigm shift; the jarring biological insight that proves you’ve been pooping all wrong.
Squatty Potty’s value proposition — eloquently communicated through their core marketing message of “Kink, unkink. Kink, unkink.” — was anchored by the vibrant visual of a Pooping Unicorn and the melodic arc of it’s story.
The marketing experience carried more influence than marketing itself.
Further, the genius of the Harmon Brothers’ scripting made is impossible to talk about the video without also discussing about the product. It was a fantastically creative encapsulation of their product offer and enabled the audience to experience their brand’s character — to get to know them.
There’s a reason (and mountains of data) that successful submissions to democratic platforms like Reddit evoke binary reactions, they are…
“… easy to understand and align with the expectations of its intended audience.” ~ Mike Rugnetta, Idea Channel
The goal isn’t attention, it’s alignment.
The purpose of ‘marketing’ is to convince and convert, but ‘the marketing experience’ establishes a captivating resonance that’s far more powerful.
To develop your own marketing experience and establish resonance with your audience, join the Ghost Influence community. You’ll have access to an expansive wiki of tactics and case studies with the support to execute them.
