April 28, 2009

Advertising And The Universe

As regular readers of this blog know, I'm a former science teacher.

The downside of that for you is that every now and then I have to sneak in a little science lesson.

Today we're going to talk about the universe.

You know that stuff you learned in school about how everything is made of atoms, and atoms are made of neutrons and protons and electrons, and there are four types of forces, including gravity and electromagnetism?

Well, it turns out it's all baloney.

All those particles and all that energy apparently make up only 4% of the universe.

The other 96%? No fucking clue.

Scientists don't know what it's made of, what it looks like, or what it smells like.

They call it dark matter and dark energy and have no idea idea what the hell it is. But they do know that without dark matter and dark energy, all their theories about how the universe works fall apart.

What does this have to do with advertising, you ask?

Well, it's like this. One of our ongoing themes here at TAC is that most of what you read and hear from experts about advertising and marketing is just baloney and guesswork tarted up to look like knowledge.

If Uncle Albert and The Rocket Scientists have only been able to figure out about 4% of their subject, how much do you think Sir Martin and the Brand Babblers really know about theirs?

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