Marketers and consumers (and by "consumers" I mean, ya know, people) are from different worlds.
Consumers are basically simple creatures with straightforward needs and easily observed behaviors.
Marketers are complicated critters with strange customs and mysterious beliefs.
Marketers are taught not to think simply. In fact, the whole practice of marketing is based on the conviction that there are forces at work in the minds of consumers that trained specialists (us) are best qualified to interpret.
Thinking simply has been beaten out of marketers.
You can't be taken seriously in any marketing or advertising organization if you suggest that the bulk of consumer behavior is perfectly obvious. You can't advance your career by speaking plainly and asserting the indisputable -- that the reason people buy most products is because they are cheaper, tastier, prettier or work better.
That kind of thinking just won't cut it in today's world of professional chaos and confusion.
Today you need to be at least a sidewalk sociologist and, even better, a pseudo-psychologist to be taken seriously as a marketing professional.
In fact, you need to think and speak in ways that no consumer in the history of civilization has ever thought or spoken.
Although they are all also consumers, marketers have forgotten how to think like a consumer. They believe all kinds of woolly nonsense about consumer behavior and can't even recognize their own motivations for doing what they do.
How marketers think and how consumers think couldn't be more different.
How marketers think:
- How can I engage consumers with my brand?
- How do I connect the personality of my brand with my target audience?
- How can I co-create with my target and develop a conversation?
- Is there parking?
- Will this fucking thing work?
- How badly are they going to screw me on the price?
- Will there be anyone there who knows what the fuck he's talking about?
