Some Things Should Not Be Marketed

Marketing is described, by the American Marketing Association, “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”  I know when I took a marketing course in college (just because I needed some hours) they made a big deal out of saying that marketing was not sales, but I still have a hard time making the distinction.  What I do know is that it has become ubiquitous, and not necessarily to good effect.

Let’s start with the interview guest host Schlichter did with Marc Caputo on Thursday. (behind paywall) Caputo described Platner as a candidate that the consultants found and thought they could package and market – reality was unimportant.  The point is marketing tends to commodify whatever it touches.  If you are selling a commodity that’s great.  But not every product offering is a commodity.

I first encountered this when my father worked for a major food canner/producer in the 1960’s.  They had a number of brands under which they sold more or less the same product.  So, the peas come in, the cannery sorts the peas by quality and the best quality go to brand X and sells for more money and it goes downhill from there.  But then along came marketing ideas – they sold the brand, not the product and suggested the company save the expense of the sorting.  Brand X still was higher priced, but that price was based entirely on the perception created by history and the marketing campaign, not the product proper.  After a while the grocery stores began selling “store brand” or “generic” at greatly discounted prices and nowadays the great canning labels are near impossible to find.  The company my dad worked for no longer exists.  Now, peas are just peas – a commodity.

I next encountered the commodification marketing produces with the advent of the church consultant.  Churches stopped being called “church” and started to having cute names like “A Place Called Home.”  Music wars erupted as studies showed contemporary music with guitars and keyboards and drums drew more people than an organ and choir.  Buildings changed to make them more approachable.  Sermons changed to make them more accessible.  Church became a product to be consumed instead of a lifestyle to be adopted.  Marketability of the church came to matter more than what the church stood for.  What was once a important theological and lifestyle choice between Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Episcopalian, Presbyterian,… became a commodity to be chosen based on price and convenience.  I don’t think that is a good development.

And now we see it happening with political candidates.  It is less about who they are and what they will do in office and more about how they can be marketed.  And so an oyster raising hobbyist becomes an oyster farmer, and so forth and so on.  And thus disaster.

Not everything that is to be offered to the public is a product to be sold or a commodity to be marketed.  Church and political candidates among them.

The Leftover Pile

Quote Instapunidt – Faster please!

Short answer – NO!

Foreign policy is not easy.  Things do not always work out as you hope.

Unsurprising.

That which was meant to preserve has unintended consequences.

There is a reason due process matters.  Our impatience can be fatal.

And finally, California.  To call this a boondoggle is to do disservice to actual boondoggles.  You know some of our historical “mistakes” were done for a good reason.  But then, it is probably hopeless.