Why I love marketing

I recently watched Mad Men. All seven seasons. And I became obsessed with marketing. Its impact on pop culture and its influence on our daily lives.

Marketing and advertising work. Way more than we admit it. Bad marketing can tank a brand's reputation. And great marketing changes the public opinion.

People like to think marketing equals advertising, and there is nothing further from the truth. Almost everything a company does besides their core product is about marketing. Building a website, posting on social media, setting up a promotional campaign or writing a blog post — all these activities (or a lack thereof) are marketing. And while many think marketing is about showing the product, it is rather about your core values: what resonates with you and your customers.

Take the finale commercial of Mad Men, the 1971 “Hilltop” ad from Coca-Cola. The ad is not about the product, it’s about values: Coke unites the world and regardless of where you come from, your gender, your skin color, language or religion, there is always a bottle of Coke for you to enjoy with somebody else. The video associates Coke with what we all crave: community, enjoyment and human connection.

Almost all successful products and brands have exceptional marketing teams behind them. Some do not even use advertising (e.g., Tesla, that never ran any advertising campaign until very recently) but all have a clear established brand and values.

The majority of marketing campaigns are bland, unappealing and are used to spend the marketing budget of a given company. The majority of campaigns follow the current trend, resulting in hundred of online ads, marketing posts and influencer videos that go unnoticed.

But when a company knows its values and is bold enough to communicate them, it leads to powerful messages that resonate with the target audience, like the “Think Different” campaign from Apple. Note that the video does not show a single computer - as all great campaigns, it’s about values.

Great marketing is why I read my emails on an iPhone, why I am driving a Tesla, or why I drink dozens of Pepsi cans a week.

Marketing is not a problem — it’s an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to communicate with people in the crowd that may join you someday. Instead of pretending that marketing has no effect on us, we should enjoy and use it.