Truth is wisdom in a box
When I started thinking about starting a creative business, I started with a tagline: “Marketing Truth”. I know, it sounds great, but it’s impossible to market the truth in all circumstances. Truth may not have had a place in marketing at all.
Marketing, by definition involves slight deception, minor exaggeration, a brief, powerful enhancement of reality, the creation of non-truths for the greater good: The Client.
It seemed obvious to me that the end consumer was missing out. Marketers had generally lost respect for the time, intellect and power of their audience. And the audience was showing signs that they were losing faith.
My belief was that if consumers were going to continue to believe marketing messages and the brands behind them, they deserved straightforward, genuine and entertaining communication from their most admired companies. I still believe this today.
So now the Internet has turned the tide on brands and their agencies and put the power back in the hands of people with buying power. Marketers are being asked to understand and reckon with the collective intelligence of networks of consumers speaking their minds, sharing their opinions, making decisions in groups.
I think brands and agencies are learning. These days they’re learning right along-side and many times in partnership with their audience, those who they sell to. It’s better this way.
So, I woke up this morning, still half-asleep, turning over with each snoozy push. Flashes of dream states passed by my eyes; memories, hopes, and random thoughts that may or may not surface later in the day, the month or my lifetime.
In one flash, I saw a nightstand with a drawer, and opened it. Inside was a box, I think, but at least I had a second to read and understand these words: “Truth is wisdom in a box.”
