Marketing Truth: People love themselves most of all

Here's the marketing truth. People love themselves. And in the end, trite as it has become "what's in it for me" is a very accurate reflection of the consumer's mind set.

Mike Sigers over at Simplenomics wrote about a fascinating study. One of the findings he sited was:

A study of college-aged women included this test: The women were given a pen and paper and asked to write anything they wanted.

460 of the 500 wrote their own name.

Wow.

And yet, time after time, marketers trip over themselves on this truth. Their efforts are almost insulting in an attempt to manipulate this attitude without actually understanding it at all.

Spike Jones writes at Brains on Fire about an Oakley campaign where the sun glasses manufacturer sent a 22-page booklet about their glasses and then asked the recipients to share the names of their friends who would also get the 22-page sales piece. The reward? An Oakley decal of course. Woo hoo.

What the Oakley example shows us is that marketers pretend to be thinking about the customer but they're really just looking in the mirror and hoping to see the customer's reflection in the background.

Not going to work, my friends. We're going to actually have to look away from the mirror.

Give a little

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