Before we get the marketing equation, let's quickly wrap up our discussion on the history of marketing and advertising. So far we've talked about how television spawned the era of the brand builders, how the C & R formula took over, and how using platitudes in marketing became standard protocol. That took us up thru about the 1970's. Then something happened around the year 1980 that made things in marketing and advertising even more difficult. Yea, more difficult! This is going to get worse before it gets better! And that's the proliferation of competition.

 

The era of the brand builder was a time of industry consolidation, which resulted in relatively few companies offering products and services. And because there were fewer competitors, companies didn't have to offer a lot of choices to their customers. Remember back in the day when there was only one Phone Company and you could buy the phones for your house directly from them? Remember how many different choices of styles and colors there were? Yea, that's right, about 2 styles—the wall mount and the desk model, and they came in about 3 colors each. black, white, and green I believe. I think they introduced turquoise in the 70's. That was pretty much it. Grocery stores didn't used to have to be supermarkets because their just weren't that many brands, styles, and varieties being manufactured. We call the days of relative—and I want to emphasize the word relative—low competition; we call that the "days of simple selling." In the days of simple selling, things were a lot less sophisticated, and it used to be a lot easier for a company or a sales person to get an opportunity to sell. Compared to now, there was low competition, low information, low media coverage, and low technology. Those factors all limited consumer selection and increased the power that sellers had over buyers. Back then, an aggressive company that just showed up would generally be successful. Not any more.

 

Now it's definitely different. Now there are tons choices available to the consumer. Now the buyer can go out there without fear of being beaten up by the salesman. Now, in today's internet, instant-information, tons of choices marketplace, the BUYER has the power. in this cluttered environment, there are so many competitors SAYING so many different things, but because they're all almost saying everything with the same meaningless platitudes that actually DON'T communicate any worthwhile information.that the BUYERS—even though they have the power—can't tell who offers the best value—or if any of the competitors offer a superior value. We call this condition NOISE—and it's created a huge GAP in the sales process that allows the buyer to keep the seller as far away as possible. We call this gap the "Confidence Gap" because it represents the customer's inability to have confidence that ANY of the products or any of the services are any different or any better or any worse than any of the others. Let me repeat that one more time.. The confidence gap is the customer's inability to have confidence that ANY of the products or any of the services are any different or any better or any worse than any of the others. To the buyer, all things appear to be equal. That's why they end up shopping price; they're not deciding based on value.

 

So here's the mess we've got now: because of the era of the brand builders, companies have learned to use the C & R formula, which results in a glut of platitudes littered throughout institutional and menu-board style marketing and advertising. Now we throw into the mix the fact that there a quad-billion competing companies out there all using the same indistinguishable drivel, and you can really see why I can say that everything you've ever learned, everything you've ever done, everything you've ever thought about marketing. it's all WRONG. The convergence of these factors over the last 50 years has brought us to a situation where the problem is absolutely pervasive, yet practically unrecognized, meaning the problem is unlikely to be fixed by all but the savviest of business people who realize an opportunity when they see one.

 

This problem of crummy marketing and advertising is prevalent and it affects you personally in your business. Folks, this is a problem that spans every business in every industry from start-ups to mom and pops to mature businesses to Fortune 500's. For whatever reason, nobody seems to know how to fix this problem, so companies just like yours keep churning out sub-par marketing that only works in direct proportion to the sheer momentum of the marketplace in your industry. Hey, people are going to buy something from somebody, and you can get your fair share with marketing efforts that are substantially no better or no worse than anybody else's. If everyone's terrible, you can subsist off of momentum. Let me put it to you this way: Even a dead fish can float down stream. But this program is called "Monopolize Your Marketplace." It's not about subsisting off of the momentum of an industry. It's about being worth more to the marketplace and as a result getting more response from the marketplace.