If marketing majors could read, they’d be very upset.
squaresinger@lemmy.world 2 days ago
That’s the neat thing, they don’t.
Marketing looks like it is there to make you buy products, but it’s a well-known fact that this doesn’t work, and online ads specifically allow performance measurements, and they show that it’s not worth the money.
So what are ads actually there for then?
First, remember that the thing that marketing departments are best at is marketing their own importance to company management. They are really good at convincing their companies that if they stop marketing, everything will collapse. So in this way, marketing is there to finance the marketing department, and everyone’s too scared to stop marketing, because if they do they will be seen as the biggest idiots ever.
Second, marketing is there to provide a small revenue stream to the platform where you see the ads, but more importantly to punish you for not paying premium. Youtube makes you watch a shitton of ads, not because they care about whether you buy anything from the ads, but to punish you for not paying premium and to get you to do so. A premium customer brings in orders of magnitude more money than an ad-only customer.
ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Marketing is more than just advertising and promoting though. Marketing is an integral part of a business. If you research what your target marketing likes, that’s marketing. Researching where you should sell your products, marketing. Focus group testing, marketing. What price you should sell, marketing. Even if a business doesn’t have a marketing department they still engage in marketing.
Zink@programming.dev 1 day ago
Yeah, it’s a very broad umbrella term.
I’m an engineer on a team that designs new products and fixes old ones. I’m happy to joke about the advertising & sales departments being the dark side of marketing, but when it comes to creating a product that is useful for our end-users, other facets of marketing are absolutely essential. The ideal, after all, is to have whatever ticket I am working on be traceable back to a customer need.
Heck, the product is pretty niche so even when I am chatting with our service technician about whatever crazy stuff customers are seeing & doing in the field, you could justify calling that marketing. It’s customer information making its way to future design decisions, even if that decision is actually being made by an engineer rather than the Product Manager.
SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 1 day ago
As you see in the comments here lots of people have no idea what marketing is beyond promotion. Unfortunately it’s often engineers who are the clueless ones and just think that you just need to build a great product and the sales will come automatically. When businesses started by engineers often fail because they make something that has no product market fit because they skipped the crucial steps of marketing. Engineers often look down on MBAs and think an MBA is useless but in my opinion every engineer should take a business and marketing course.
melfie@lemy.lol 2 days ago
the thing that marketing departments are best at is marketing their own importance to company management
That’s quite an interesting insight.
iglou@programming.dev 1 day ago
And a catchy one, but not really meaningful or correct.
The whole comment showcases how little they know about running a business. Marketing works. But of course we the consumer don’t notice it works, because we think “Well I never click on an ad…” which also reflects on advertisement statistics.
But that’s not the point of ads, at least not anymore. The point is you saw the brand. You saw what they do. Everytime you see the brand name or logo, everytime you see the product, your brain registers it. You might not realise it, but it does. And when the time comes you need a product like that, that’s where the value of marketing shows. Because you’ll browse, research, or whatever you do when you decide you need something. And you’ll see the brand, and you’ll see the name, and you’ll think “Hmm I’ve heard of them before” and immediately place them higher in your mind than a competitor with 0 ad budget.
squaresinger@lemmy.world 1 day ago
“Uhg, McDonalds again. These assholes always waste my time with the same ad over and over again. I just want to watch a video. I hate these idiots.”
Yes, the brain registers. If a brand keeps annoying me over and over again with intrusive ads, the breain does register.
melfie@lemy.lol 1 day ago
I’m sure it’s true that a lot of marketing departments are useless, but adept at marketing themselves. At the same time, you’re right that marketing also can and does work, and the marketing that works best is when you’re not even conscious of it. For example, most of us here are well-aware of the upcoming Steam Frame and Steam Machine. How so? Marketing.
Auli@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
I find it boss that ads don’t make anymony. They seem to be driving the whole world economy.
squaresinger@lemmy.world 1 day ago
They make money for those who sell ad space.
SippyCup@lemmy.world 1 day ago
This is one of those fun conspiracy theories that is harmless, and can’t be argued against because you can always just say “SEE THEY’VE CONVINCED YOU TOO!”
It’s not, we can prove that marketing does in fact impact sales, but it’s fun nonetheless.
WindyRebel@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I hate that I’m going to defend marketing here, but if they do stop marketing then things will collapse. Do I like marketing, personally? No. That’s why I got out of marketing and am becoming an elementary school teacher to help others rather than spit propaganda but I digress…
Marketing isn’t always about generating a sale. Many times its reach and brand recall. We’re a global economy now, so reach is massively important for survival. Stopping marketing limits who is exposed to your brand and the repetition makes your company synonymous with a product.
Why do we call tissues Kleenex? Why do we call cotton swabs a Qtip? Why do we call small sticky notepads Post-Its? Why do we call searching “Googling”? Why do we gravitate toward those brands even when cheaper and more generic options exist that are perfectly on par?
Making those brands the prime thing you think of when you use a specific thing so that no one thinks of using something else even when they have money. You want people to mention your product or think about it even if they aren’t buying it.
You’re drowning out the potential of your competition. That’s marketing, and if you stop then your competitor takes over or a small business won’t grow.
ssladam@lemmy.world 1 day ago
As an engineer who hated marketing, started my own business, which subsequently failed due to my lack of understanding for the importance and proper execution of the marketing mission… I now have a deep respect, and appreciation of a well-run marketing function.
architect@thelemmy.club 1 day ago
I have a great business name and word of mouth carries me.
I feel like if you need marketing it’s because you have too many competitors all doing the same thing ie: no one needs your business.
Zacryon@feddit.org 1 day ago
If a business can not sustain itself without marketing, then the product is possibly not worth having.
ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
To be fair, there are plenty of people who specifically avoid those brands because they are more expensive and they know they can save money with cheaper alternatives, or because they can’t afford the name brand.
With that said, there are some times where the name brand does actually provide a superior product.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
Yeah, everyone knows Coca-Cola. Nobody immediately goes out to buy some when they see the ad with Santa Clause and whatever, but the brand recognition is conditioned into pretty much everyone so you notice it in the store when you’re thinking of grabbing a cool beverage from the fridge.
It’s not even that good, but it’s the default.
squaresinger@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Tbh, I don’t think it’s that powerful. I’ve been happily googling on DuckDuckGo for years, same as I have been using Post-its from all sorts of companies and in fact never from Post-it. I don’t think this brand is even available in my country.
I’ve been using “Tixo” for “sticky tape” even though the Tixo brand went out of business around the time I was born.
In fact, if a brand name becomes genericised, it loses its power. It stops being a brand and becomes a generic term for anything in that space.
Brand recognition also goes the other way. You know, like when you see a McDonalds and you instinctively go “Ugh, these asshats who keep wasting my time with always the same ad over and over again when I try to watch a youtube video.”
Intrusive ads don’t further positive brand recognition but instead cause brand fatigue.
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Yeah, back when I still watched cable TV, Canadian Tire had a recurring character in their ads where some neighbours were talking about a problem and the Canadian Tire guy would pop in with how Canadian Tire had a product that could help with that very problem.
Sounded like a normal kind of ad, but the guy came off as so smug and corporate, he was pretty much in the uncanny valley with his behaviour. Trying to play the ad off as a natural conversation just came off as so fake and I hated the ads to the point where I boycotted the windshield wipers despite them looking like exactly what I wanted.
They weren’t, I’d later learn after enough time had passed after they fired the guy (because turns out I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t stand him) and I decided they had learned their lesson. But the ads did more to drive me to other stores than help Canadian Tire’s business, even though they were already one of the default options (for those who don’t know them, they are a big box store that is like Home Depot plus car parts, outdoor sporting/camping/hunting, but minus a bunch of the hardware and any contractor focus).