Cluetrain-a-Day 2009: Most marketing programs are based on the fear that the market might see what's really going on inside the company.

By Alex Hillman on Saturday, February 14th, 2009 in business with 2 Comments

This post is part of a 95 post series discussing the 95 theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto as they relate to business in 2009. Read more about the series in the introduction post. And check out the rest of the series!

Thesis #28: Most marketing programs are based on the fear that the market might see what’s really going on inside the company.

Why is it that so many marketing initatives are designed around carefully constructed and controlled channels of communication?

Because everybody knows what everybody else is up to, thanks to the web. And worse: everybody thinks they know what everybody else is up to, thanks to the web.

Marketing and PR should not be damage control (that’s legal’s job, right?).

If something is going on inside your company that you’re worried about your customers knowing about, it shouldn’t be marketing’s job to keep that from spreading by obscuring it with a smiley marketing project.

Instead…maybe the company should stop doing that thing they don’t want their customers to know about?

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  • http://www.slash7.com Amy

    Too true.

    And sadly, I think most people behave the same way.

    I have met far too many people in my life who think that they’ll “get away” with whatever it is that they’re doing that they know they shouldn’t be doing (however minor), as long as they hide it. In the end, they still can’t escape from themselves, and they know they’ve been doing it (whatever it is), and the psychic effort from hiding it successfully (or so they think) costs them 10x more than it would to just admit it, be open about it, and then stop.

    In a person, it’s just sheer humanity shining through.

    In a company, it quickly becomes pathological.

  • http://www.slash7.com Amy

    Too true.

    And sadly, I think most people behave the same way.

    I have met far too many people in my life who think that they’ll “get away” with whatever it is that they’re doing that they know they shouldn’t be doing (however minor), as long as they hide it. In the end, they still can’t escape from themselves, and they know they’ve been doing it (whatever it is), and the psychic effort from hiding it successfully (or so they think) costs them 10x more than it would to just admit it, be open about it, and then stop.

    In a person, it’s just sheer humanity shining through.

    In a company, it quickly becomes pathological.