As subscribing readers have noticed, I’m not a huge fan of the classical marketing theory’s and sale principle. The notion that everything can be sold to every person if you use the right approach or talk the right words. I also hate, no sorry to harsh words… I strongly oppose the traditional and bureaucratic view on society, work and business. Why should we humans just accept everything other “higher, trickier” people try to make us believe, in the simple outcome of us buying their product? Earlier this week I wrote a post about big media corporations and how they primary objective is to attract the most viewers, not to mainly entertain, but to increase their own profit through advertisers. And I’m not this classical marketing strategy’s best friend, I really despise the old “reach everyone and they better listen to us”-model. This mass media model that have been sticking with us like a headache after a long night at the pub.
I consider myself a marketer (and an thinker, philosopher and entrepreneur), which can be kind of a paradox, that I work with and is interested in something that I despise at the same time? But there is a difference, in my mind. When I studied marketing and business at university my eyes opened for the principles of marketing. As with almost all new things I learn, I start to think and reflect about certain things when I see them in the real life. All my life I’ve feelt like and outsider, and not fitting in to the typical stereotype that got everyone else interesting. Not good looking, social, fun, loveable or interesting. And many many many other people (if not all except the ones so stupid they can’t even spell their own name) feel the same way. That is my belief, any way… And where does this feeling come from? One of the biggest contributors to this phenomena is the media! They take the stereotypes which is spawned in our everyday life, and use them to their own advantage. They also possess the power to change the world (well not entirely true, but not far).
So what do I mean by this, and what is it that pisses me off? It is the manipulations and creation of false dreams, and a fucked up view on the world!!! How many ads doesn’t exist which isn’t portraying beautiful and successful models? This simple concept is used to create the effect that if you use the product, you will get the feeling of the dream or false reality that is building in your head when you watch it. Or sometimes marketers use this as a mean to enhance the “quality”-label or trust value for the product, by using a famous face. They sell a false reality according to me! And often, the companies not interested in how people think or feel when they use their product, just that they buy it again. Seriously, how many companies really care about their customers? They want to make money, so they can sell us more fake dreams, and fill their wallet even more!
So once again, isn’t this contradicting what I work with? I my view no. That’s one of the thing that spoke to me when I started working with those new marketing tools and principles that Google was a big contributor to, namely the focus on the consumer. What I work with is trying to help people to find what they’re looking for. In contrast to the “old”-model (pushing our message in peoples face, down there throats and they-should-just-be-happy-and-buy-our-fucking-product-mentality), to what I see as a more of a “call-center”-model, where people comes to us and tell us what they want help with and we try to help them and put them in focus. That’s the mentality and philology I have every day to work. I want to help the right person, to the right product at the right time and through the right medium. And the last thing I ever would what to do, is to create false hopes or dreams! Cause I hate them myself.
And here’s a very interesting point. Them videogame constantly have to battle society’s new scepticism of its content, they are amongst those that have matured the most. Just because its a new medium, one far from everyone understand or even grasp 1% of, like movies and music have been attacked when these came around, it seems natural that society, media have to blame most of its faults on something. Videogames are blamed for its violence, sex and the ability for individuals to have control over what happens. And yet, there are other medium that are more easily available, movies, tv, radio, the internet and physical ads. Not only does these contain the same (sometimes even more violence and bad influences) they are, it seems, more accepted. They have gone through some kind of process, or “grown” up and have become acceptable element of our life’s. Games are often accused for one of the factors that make them appealing, its interactivity. That the player chose its actions and have the power to do or don’t. And that they don’t fully understand the cause of their actions. But then companies create ads on tv, internet, and physical which is posted all around us, with one single objective… To trick people in buying their products, not to make people feel good or help them, but to make fucking profit! They never think of the consequences of what they create and what message they send out. Then I studied Marketing we talked about how to use marketing tools to give people a sense of what they want. The old trick to use “beautiful” people, cause the Marketers want people to buy their product and get the feeling as if they were those “role models”. They use these tools to trick people, to create a false view on reality, which make people sick and stressed out. And then they have the fucking guts to complain on videogames and these new mediums.
Once again the example of the Mass Effect scandal. In the game there are some sex scenes, yes! The game is not allowed to be sold to kids. It becomes a scandal, and yet, if you analyse TV-shows, advertisement, movies, rap-lyrics and articles in magazines, I at least get really confused. They send different messages and don’t make sense.
What often pisses me off are the amount of people who always complain that it was better in the past. And I get the feeling that old people and companies want people to adapt to the wheels of society and just become a slave, a clone on everyone else. Don’t be a free thinker or a rebel, and don’t do odd things. Just be a bypassing viewer and just buy and accept everything that society, companies and the media tells you. They want to decide what’s real or not, it seems. And then they complain on kids been addicted to online games like World of Warcraft and blame the games to create a false reality in the mind of the players. But what are they trying to do with their commercials? The same fucking thing that games does! What company wouldn’t kill to have a product with the same appeal as games have?
I have many many thoughts on this subject, but I write them another time…