What to look for in Your Marketeers

A fresh approach!  That’s right, just as the best pizza is created with the very finest of fresh ingredients, a great creative marketing campaign in this age of hyperbolic media bombardment is one that can rise above that fray and present itself in a fresh and compelling manner reaching, in varying forms, across multiple media channels with content that ultimately act as shiny lures to capture your audiences’ attention and convey your message.

Plus, with the Zombie Apocalypse fast approaching it’s never too soon to find the perfect marketing creative.  As a matter of fact, if you act now you will be insuring that, when the horde does lay siege, your brand will be positioned to not only survive but to grow into the epoch.

Don’t fall prey to the old:  “It takes a zombie to market a zombie.”

You’re going to need nimble, out of the box ideation.  Something that breaks through the beige with a big splash of crimson – and not just from zombie brains.  You are going to need a marketing samurai – a paladin questing across the media wasteland in search of the ultimate campaign.

Think of it this way: 

If you hire someone who was in charge of marketing for the past ten years at McDonalds what do you get?  

You get ten years worth of McDonalds marketing.  In other words, you get very conservative corporate messaging; because big corps can be loathe to do anything that isn’t tried and true – since they’ve got brand to protect.  They can afford this approach because they’ve got big money to spend on repetition.  So, even if their marketing doesn’t stand out, it gets across through constant bombardment.  Most entities can’t afford this carpet-bombing mentality and must be more selective in how they spend their market dollar.  They’ve got to aim for a more targeted approach with memorable disruptive messaging – something that stands out and gains the attention of the short attention span masses, or zombies. 

So, whether you’re a shiny new startup or your company has been in business for a bunch of years, now is the time to reboot and kick start your business into this new millennium with some disruptive marketing.

What is marketing, disruptive or otherwise?

Marketing is an enigma wrapped inside a riddle – like a big calzone.  If anyone tells you that you need to adhere to some ancient tome of rules to marketing you should run away as quickly as possible.  Rules imply a confinement, a rigidness that seems the very antithesis of what great creative marketing should aspire to be.  I am not advocating anarchy here, there are guidelines – formulas, if you will – that one can utilize that will go a long ways toward producing the desired effect – engaging your audience.

Let’s face it; in this age everyone is a marketer.  People have tried to label this as the age of the celebrity – ultimately, I feel it will be deemed the age of the marketer, because isn’t that really what all these so called celebrities are doing?  I’m marketing myself right now. 

What is the easiest and most effective way to engage an audience with your content?

Ask a question.  That’s right, human beings are hardwired to want to try and prove themselves worthy so they will go out of their way to engage and either prove that they know the answer or learn the answer for the next opportunity.   It’s a brain hack.  I bet you can’t tell me the next best way to engage.  Yes, issue a challenge.

Great marketing is all about creating compelling narratives that inspire your audience.  The most basic of narrative formulas goes as:  Present a problem, reveal a solution.  This could easily translate as:  “Don’t want to cook dinner tonight?  Get the Zombie Brain Pizza Special at The Pie Place.”  It is this distillation of messaging that has become a requirement within this media bombarded short attention span society. 

Great marketing is also about taking risks.  This piece of writing for example – I could have been conservative and made it all about the mechanics of marketing but, instead I went out on a limb with the whole zombie angle.  For my money it is much more compelling this way – more disruptive – more artistic.

What is the difference between a picture and a work of art?

A work of art is the distillation of a narrative down into its most singular form, whereas a picture is just that.

Put some artistry into your marketing.