>I'm often unconvinced with arguments like "marketing is about fulfilling a customer's needs" or "adding efficiency to the market".
This product is actually an ideal case for marketing, because most people weren't aware that a product like this existed. The best ads notify you about something you genuinely want to buy.
What you're really complaining about is astroturfing, not marketing.
The more dubious sort of marketing is Coca-Cola style marketing, where people already know that the product exists, and the ad just makes them feel vaguely good about it. But I suspect even this sort of marketing is surprisingly beneficial, because it incentivizes companies to make quality products: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42578277
My argument for Coca-Cola style brand marketing would go something like:
It's very silly to invest $billions in brand awareness and building market share, if your product is junk and customers will eventually find out. Marketing spend could be seen as the "peacock's tail" of the business world -- a credible signal that the company stands by their product.
If I see an ad for Acme Corp, it's statistical evidence that Acme won an auction for that slot against other players in its industry. Acme won the auction because it was able to bid more. It was able to bid more because it has better lifetime value per customer, i.e. it does a better job of satisfying customer needs.
There are a lot of old consumer brands, and there are a lot of brands known for junk, but there aren't a lot of old consumer brands that are known for junk.
> There are a lot of old consumer brands, and there are a lot of brands known for junk, but there aren't a lot of old consumer brands that are known for junk.
This is why repeatedly buying old consumer brands and then turning them to junk is so insanely profitable. It takes years or decades for consumers to realize that a trusted brand is junk. The consumer never knows that the corporation that turned their brand to junk is currently looking for more brands to acquire.
I wonder if such acquirers tend to reduce marketing spend? This could make sense, if they're operating on a shorter time horizon. Seems a little silly to try to both accumulate and spend down brand equity at the same time.
If so, lack of advertising could be a handy indicator of dropping product quality ;-)
> Acme won the auction because it was able to bid more. It was able to bid more because it has better lifetime value per customer, i.e. it does a better job of satisfying customer needs.
This is obviously not true. What if they are backed by investors? And there are a gazillion other reasons why they could spend more on that ad ...
I agree that could nix the argument about better lifetime value per customer. I think the overall argument ends up going through anyways, because investors want to invest in companies that make good products. Paul Graham is constantly emphasizing the importance of pleasing your customers.
>And there are a gazillion other reasons why they could spend more on that ad ...
I think ads are still statistical evidence though.
It depends on if you can make up for a crappy product by good advertising and end up with a net profit. That this is not possible is what you should prove.
> It's very silly to invest $billions in brand awareness and building market share, if your product is junk and customers will eventually find out. Marketing spend could be seen as the "peacock's tail" of the business world -- a credible signal that the company stands by their product.
Interesting, never thought about it that way. I often find that obviously expensive advertising lowers my expectations in the product and especially in the price performance ratio, since I can't stop thinking about having to pay for the advertising too, not just the actual product/service I want. Which I don't want to.
I'm mostly against the marketing where the company lies or misleads the customer. While this is bad if the product is new or existing, lies are easier if the audience based is uninformed about a subject. The major issue with marketing is that it's hard to trust someone when so many people marketing have a short term finical interest in stretching the truth as much as possible.
In this situation it's mostly harmless, but we see terrible examples of this in the health/supplements space.
I mean Coca-Cola is junk food, it's unhealthy and we know it is. They advertise to maintain the illusion that it leads to success and happiness. They can't afford for scientific understanding to win over the brainwashing of 'brand advertising'as that would be the death knell for the company (or 99% of it).
Not a single human being alive in the world believes that drinking Coca-Cola "leads to success and happiness."
Coke advertises so that when you're in the store or a gas station and you think "maybe I'll get a soda" you think of Coke before Pepsi. They advertise so that someone starting a restaurant thinks to buy the Coke syrup before they think to buy the Pepsi syrup.
>Not a single human being alive in the world believes that drinking Coca-Cola "leads to success and happiness."
And yet somehow we still reflexively choose it, because something in our brain associates it with big smiles, success, happiness, being fit, etc., almost as if we've been fed imagery every day of our lives to try to convince us of that fact.
If you honestly believe that people drink Coca-Cola because they subconsciously associate it with "big smiles" and physical fitness I really don't know what to tell you, man. Everyone I know who drinks it has one because they want a soda every now and then.
Plenty of people are entirely capable of knowing that drinking a thing is not an objectively healthy act - soda and alcohol are the two big ones that come to mind - without pathologizing the act or pretending that the people making money off of it are Mr. Burns-level caricatures or mustache-twirling super-villain billionaires.
This product is actually an ideal case for marketing, because most people weren't aware that a product like this existed. The best ads notify you about something you genuinely want to buy.
What you're really complaining about is astroturfing, not marketing.
The more dubious sort of marketing is Coca-Cola style marketing, where people already know that the product exists, and the ad just makes them feel vaguely good about it. But I suspect even this sort of marketing is surprisingly beneficial, because it incentivizes companies to make quality products: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42578277
My argument for Coca-Cola style brand marketing would go something like:
It's very silly to invest $billions in brand awareness and building market share, if your product is junk and customers will eventually find out. Marketing spend could be seen as the "peacock's tail" of the business world -- a credible signal that the company stands by their product.
If I see an ad for Acme Corp, it's statistical evidence that Acme won an auction for that slot against other players in its industry. Acme won the auction because it was able to bid more. It was able to bid more because it has better lifetime value per customer, i.e. it does a better job of satisfying customer needs.
There are a lot of old consumer brands, and there are a lot of brands known for junk, but there aren't a lot of old consumer brands that are known for junk.