“All marketers are liars” – but there are limits, don’t you think?

The “liars” quote is the title of a book by Seth Godin, I think.

Oddly enough I commissioned some research for a client years ago that showed that customers are not fooled. They know we are a bunch of bullshit artists.

That’s why conventional advertisers, who mostly are too dozy to measure their results, neglect that powerful tool the testimonial, whilst everyone who does count uses it all the time.

Apropos of nothing much, one of the most successful mailings I ever wrote was to sell what were then the world’s most expensive cruises, which is why these two pictures made me roar.

The one at the top shows what one firm promises your fellow passengers are going to be like. The one at the bottom shows what they really were. No kidding.

If we tried that stuff on in a mailing for a financial client, we’d all be rotting in jail.

About the Author

In 2003, the Chartered Institute of Marketing named Drayton one of 50 living individuals who have shaped today’s marketing.

He has worked in 55 countries with many of the world’s greatest brands. These include American Express, Audi, Bentley, British Airways, Cisco, Columbia Business School, Deutsche Post, Ford, IBM, McKinsey, Mercedes, Microsoft, Nestle, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Unilever, Visa and Volkswagen.

Drayton has helped sell everything from Airbus planes to Peppa Pig. His book, Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing, out in 17 languages, has been the UK’s best seller on the subject every year since 1982. He has also run his own businesses in the U.K., Portugal and Malaysia.

He was a main board member of the Ogilvy Group, a founding member of the Superbrands Organisation, one of the first eight Honorary Fellows of the Institute of Direct Marketing and one of the first three people named to the Hall of Fame of the Direct Marketing Association of India. He has also been given Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Caples Organisation in New York and Early To Rise in Florida.

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