This week, my blog became the first to be available on Mars. It caused quite a stir. Not because of the subject matter per se, but the idea of naming a book “Your Marketing Sucks” was considered inappropriate. More than that, totally crossing the line.
But wait, you may be saying, there is no intelligent life on Mars. Really? Haven’t you ever seen a Martian? Images of these planetary citizens? Movies of them sailing around on flying saucers?
The fact is, there likely is no life on Mars as far as the scientists are concerned. But that hasn’t stopped marketers from inventing an alien species that doesn’t exist but that we all have seen hundreds or thousands of times.
There’s an important principle embedded in all of this lunacy: marketers must escape the bounds of pragmatic reality to invent the kinds of provocative ideasconceptscreatures that serve as the framework for our campaigns.
Although there is absolutely a scientific component to strong and effective marketing (that delivers measurable ROI), enlightened marketers engage in fantasy as a way to escape the bounds of the commonplace and predictable and thus to formulate true breakthrough concepts. At the outset, we do not and should not be restricted by what is proven, politically correct or appropriate. Just as Einstein began with fantasy and worked his way back to reality, marketers must escape the bounds of gravity and then reverse engineer to the hard realities of the marketplace.
It’s all a matter of understanding that where you start is often a good indicator of where you will end up.
For now, I have some fires to tend to on Mars.