Are people who work in marketing, a marketeers dream consumer?

I have often asked that question of myself every time I sample something new, or buy the latest craze, or believe the hype about the ‘next best thing’. Working in the industry and having to be constantly aware of the ever-evolving barrage of new, improved, better than-ever products and services, I feel compelled to taste, sample and experience them all, but on the flip-side I am partly responsible for creating that need to believe and should have a wiser, more informed opinion. 

Is it just the simple fact that we construct and embellish so many facts that as industry-insiders we are brain-washed into believing everything we read without feeling any need to be sceptic? Or are we just so hungry to be on the cutting edge of everything that goes on out there, we must expose ourselves to everything new and exciting? 

That then made me think of ‘hype’ and whether or not it is actually any different to marketing - do they go hand in hand? Can you have one without the other? Or are they effectively the same thing? Can you market something successfully without creating hype and if not, does that mean that we are all in danger of raising the expectations of the consumer so high that we can never achieve our goals. For that reason, hype has always been a negative word in my vocabulary, mostly because I feel I should be pre-programmed to ‘never believe the hype’, yet as already mentioned, I can’t help but be drawn in, to what I will for now call ‘effective consumer marketing’. 

I would write more, but I’ve heard that there’s a demonstration of a great, amazing, all-singing, all-dancing gizmo, that will revolutionise my life, at a department store near-by in a few minutes time and if i don’t dash I may miss it…

Darren Price

Comments

[Martin]

As someone who works in marketing, I am one of the people who help create the 'hype'. Which you would expect to put me in the same camp as Darren. But I'm not. Quite the reverse. Yes, I get intrigued by the latest gizmos and even occasionally excited by must-haves, got-to-gets and can't-live-withouts. But doing what I do for a living also leaves me always looking for the catch, the angle and always, always reading the small print on ads. Quite often, there's no sinister alternative agenda for a new product launch. It is just a product launch. It really does what it says it does on the tin. And, it really is the next must-have! But how am I supposed to know for sure? After all, although I'm a marketeer - I'm also a normal consumer too. Maybe if there was more open and honest advertising around, consumers would be less suspicious and more welcoming to the next new, best, improved or got-to-have product to appear.