When people with MBAs talk about marketing, it's all about jargon: "Return on Investment," "Target Audience," etc. In the real world, marketing is simply a stunt.
Stunt vs. Marketing
A stunt is wearing a gaudy suit and doing an eye-caching performance in front of people, while marketing is making your products look great and showing them off in front of people (e.g., on a TV commercial). There's not much difference between the two. If you make your products look nicer and show them off to more people, you will get more attention. As a result, you can sell more products.
Attention
When you are planning marketing campaigns (stunts), you need to expand your imagination. There are things other than your products that you can show people. Think of a motor show. There are always women wearing clothes totally irrelevant to the products (in this case, motor vehicles). On top of that, they don't even promote the products; they just stand beside them. Even such illogical stunts get a lot of attention from the show's audience. Your attention might have already been taken by those women, but the point I’m making is that there are all sorts of stunts to get people’s attention other than just showing your products.
Be Different
Moreover, when businesses use social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, people, especially corporate executives, want to maintain professionalism (e.g., by posting a mission statement). Sure, it gives a professional appearance, but it also makes your business look like just another ordinary company, and you can get attention from very few people. Good, bad, or ugly, you've got to do some attention-grabbing stunts if you want to be noticed and sell more products.
© December, 2011