The Underground Classic That Explains How Marketing Really Works--and Why Authenticity Is the Best Marketing of All

I stumbled upon this book while searching for ways to improve my ability to convey my ideas in business settings. I watched Seth Godin's TED talks so I was familiar with some of his viewpoints and advice. The book was great and easy to understand the points he was trying to make. I'd recommend this book.

Best book for implementing a lot of ideas when you are in sales.....very true....every one has his/her own story...and its you and only you who can make that story appealing to others.....and all the game is hidden in how you can make that appealing...

A fresh way of looking at marketing - not only as story-telling, but rather authentic story-telling entrenched in all aspects of our lives -not just the purely commercial. I definitely recommend this book, and not only to marketing or business people – “All marketers are liars” has elements useful to people of all walks of life.

For people with Design and Innovation background, like me it is quite important to know the next steps in taking the designed product to the customer, so this book gives an insight as in how to present it.

If you're interested in storytelling and selling psychology, this book has to be in your collection. Some of the ideas in here reminded me of Joseph Campbell's "The Power of Myth." There's a built in "story code" that we all respond to -- it's part of the historic/sociological genetics of our specie.

If you can tap into that -- while matching consumers with products -- you've climbed yet another rung higher on the master marketer ladder.

I'm co-author of a book called "The 7 Essential Steps to eBay Marketing" (McGraw-Hill, July 2005), and many of the fundamental marketing concepts we drew on parallel the ideas in Godin's book. They're just adapted for the eBay context.

Five big stars.

Seth writes another gem of a book with All Marketers Tell Stories. I like the fact that he produced a 2nd edition of this book. While not much content has changed, the title is more "true to form" than the 1st.

And yes, this book explains how marketing really works very well.

You will learn priceless counter intuitive tactics to effectively market your idea or business if you buy and follow the guidance in this book. And if you do that you'll become a far more formidable competitor. Don't buy this book and whatever you do, don't tell anyone else that this book exists.

Recommending Seth almost goes without saying.

Quick paced, insightful read packed with anecdotes and good stories/examples of how a business'/product's story helps it to spread and be adopted by the public or clientèle.

Get your story straight, believable, and easy to share. And check out this book.

Seth Godin has become a trusted name in the marketing world, and All Marketers Are Liars is the next installment to his simple but extremely important concepts.

There are 13 different post-it flags hanging out of this book for me to pass on great information to others.

Seth Godin's typical overstated and shocking title made me think twice before digging in, but as I started plowing through the work I realized that his approach actually makes a lot of sense. There were a couple points that I disagreed with along the way, but overall I get where he is going. Godin says that everyone wants to hear a story, a narrative, that fits with how they view life (worldview). If we frame the story that we tell in relation to this specific worldview, we will end up telling them the story that they want to hear and have the potential of making their lives better for having done so. Where the story breaks down is if our product or service actually ends up harming the customer. While every marketer tells the customer a story that makes them believe in the product or service so that they (the customer) can then lie to themselves in order to convince themselves that they really should buy it, some marketers use this power to fulfill that customer's want, and others use this power to fulfill their own wants to the detriment of the customer. In the end it is a question of whether I'm using the powerful marketing tools at my disposal to serve my customers and tell them the stories they've been waiting for or whether I'm using those tools to further my own agenda to the harm of the customer or community or environment.

There are a ton of really good true to life examples of stories told well and poorly and stories told ethically and unethically. Godin uses examples and tailors his explanations towards a broad variety of industries. In the end, if you're trying to understand how to take a unique product or service that truly serves your customer and make that connection between the want and the perceived solution, this is the book for you.

All Marketers are Liars is about how great marketers focus on the the attributes of a product, as much as focusing on telling a story about the product to a select group of people with a worldview that fits with that story. In turn, a successful story will appeal to that group, who will buy the product, and tell friends and others about it.

The author points out that great marketing stories succeed because of the following attributes:

A great story is true. A great story is not based on facts. Its truth lies in a consistent and authentic message. Consumers are very adept at locating and detecting inconsistencies. Marketers cannot sustain a story that is false. An example of a true and successful story that comes to my mind is the the store Kindle. When introduced in 2007, the store founder and CEO Jeff Bezos told the story of a reading device that he claimed is in many ways better than the good ol' fashioned book. He described how the device can download any book available for the Kindle within 60 seconds, from just about any location in the U.S. He also announced the store's goal of converting all books into digital format, and making them available for this new and innovative device. He described the non-glare screen that incorporates e-ink technology which looks and feels like you're reading paper and ink. The device weighs less than a pound, and stores thousands of books in its memory bank. Imagine taking your library with you wherever you go. Those who love to read were assured that this will make reading easier, more convenient, and more pleasurable. As an owner of the device, I can attest to the truth and authenticity of the Kindle story. The Kindle is a better reading experience than a book. And those who don't own one can do a Kindle search on the store's website and read the thousands of five-star user reviews that confirm the authenticity of the Kindle story.

Great stories make a promise. Great stories promise something to the consumer that is bold and worth listening to. BMW calls their offering "The Ultimate Driving Machine." As someone who loves to drive, when I here this promise, it makes me feel like going out and driving a BMW.

Great stories are trusted. In the the store Kindle story, the story teller is Jeff Bezos, who founded the store.com in the 1990's with the story of a better way to purchase books. The story told of using the internet (which was new and cutting-edge at the time) to shop for books. Users could read book samples, write their own reviews, read other reader's reviews, and buy books cheaper than at a brick-and-mortar bookstore such as Barnes and Noble. No more waiting in line. No more paying higher prices. No more limited selection. Millions heard the promise. Millions tried it. Millions are satisfied, loyal customers who love the experience of buying books (and so much more) on the store.com. Fast forward to 2007, when many of the same customers heard Jeff Bezos' story of an electronic book called the Kindle that is a better reading experience than an actual book, and these listeners took the story seriously. He gained credibility with his first promise of revolutionizing the book-buying experience, and he continues to gain credibility with millions of satisfied customers who trusted him enough to buy into the story of the the store Kindle.

Great stories are subtle. People like to draw their own conclusions. The less a marketer spells out the story, the more effective it becomes. Consumers will come up with the story themselves. Letting the consumer draw their own conclusion is far more effective than announcing it. When we see a television ad for the Apple Ipad, does Apple come out and tell us what the story is? No. Instead they show people using the Ipad in cool and different ways, with various applications, and let us draw our own conclusion. It's a subtle story with a powerful message that simply speaks for itself.

Great stories happen fast. A good story engages people quickly. It gets to the point. One of Kawasaki's commercials for quads and off-road motorcycles immediately shows users ripping through the woods on a Kawasaki Quad, and then switches to a rider tearing through the desert terrain on a Kawasaki dirt bike. Anyone even remotely interested in off-roading on a quad or dirt bike is going to immediately take notice. The story is delivered without delay.

Great stories don't appeal to logic, but they often appeal to our senses. Does Axe body spray really attract hundreds of woman to you all at once, as the commercial portrays? Of course not! But does the prospect of attracting a lot of women by using Axe body spray appeal to eligible men? Of course it does. In addition, the Axe body spray commercial is another great example of delivering the story with subtlety. Instead of coming out and saying "Axe body spray will make you more attractive to women." The commercial shows a man spraying it on his body, and proceeding to get immediately chased and pursued by hundreds of beautiful women. No one needs to say a single word in this commercial. The viewer comes up with the story himself.

Great stories are rarely aimed at everyone. Watering down a story to appeal to everyone, will appeal to no one. The Axe body spray story isn't intended to appeal to a fifty-five year old woman with four children. Rather, the story is intended for a younger, specific male demographic.
Great stories don't contradict themselves. If GM offers an SUV that claims to be economical, but gets 15 miles to the gallon, consumer will see through the deceit. If a restaurant claims to offer home-cooked meals, but it's discovered that most their meals are pre-cooked, frozen food that is simply reheated, how much patronage will that restaurant get?

Great stories agree with our worldview. The best stories are aimed at listeners with a specific worldview, who will feel better and more secure after hearing the story because it already agrees with what they believed in the first place. Harley Davidson makes a statement of cool, rugged, confident, individual, American-made freedom on the open road. Those who own Harleys are comforted by this message, and enjoy the image that riding a Harley portrays. Those who love motorcycles, but don't own a Harley have no choice but to ask themselves "Isn't this the cool image I seek to portray?"

One criticism I have is I feel the author used the word "lie" too often. He also used the word inappropriately, flippantly, and contradictory. We all know the definition of a lie. It's a mistruth. Something that is false. However, the author would often refer to marketers stories as "lies", even in the context of the story being ethical and accurate. For example, he writes, "Talented marketers understand that the prospect is ultimately telling himself the lie, so allowing him (and the rest of the target audience) to draw his own conclusions is are more effective than just announcing the punch line." Just before he makes this point, he writes that "Great stories are trusted." This is contradictory. First he points out the importance of honesty and integrity in telling a story to the marketplace, but then goes on to say that good marketers let consumers tell themselves the "lie." This is a bad choice of words, and there isn't any reason to use the word "lie" in this context. If it's a good authentic story, (just as he pointed out), the consumer won't have to tell himself a lie. The consumer can tell herself the story.

I thought the book was interesting, entertaining, timely, and educational. I appreciated the fact that it's a recent publication (2005) with current applications and examples for today's marketplace. No longer is it enough to simply position a product correctly to make it desirable and hot. The marketer must tell a good, honest, quick story aimed at a select worldview. After reading and absorbing the material, I am now more scrutinizing of marketing stories I am exposed to throughout various media. Also, I the material challenged me to analyze my selling and marketing strategies being put to use at the company I am with. Through my analysis, I have concluded that a better story needs to be told to my customers when selling the services we offer. I have been too focused on the benefits and attributes of the offerings, and not focused enough on telling a more powerful and subtle story that the consumer can draw their own conclusions from.

Seth Godin, author of such classics as Permission Marketing, Purple Cow, and Unleashing the Idea Virus (and founder of the social networking site Squidoo), continues to display his chops as one of the freshest and most visionary marketing minds in the English-speaking part of the planet.

In this book, he looks deeply at the power of story in marketing-with some insights I haven't seen elsewhere.

Why does wine actually taste better in a $20 glass than in a $1 glass? The wine is no different-but the story makes it feel different-and people buy the story (and the glass).

The trick, says Godin, is to tell a new story, often to a new audience. Look for a market segment that feels ignored, that its worldview isn't being heard-and tell a story that reaches them. Don't try to bang your head against the wall telling a modified familiar story to the same old familiar audience that's already been buying from someone else. While your story should not contradict facts, the facts are much less relevant to the marketing than the narrative you weave around it.

Specific examples?

The rock band Wilco rejected the classic record-industry story that illegal music downloads are a destructive force. The band released its repertoire for free download and watched CD and concert ticket sales shoot through the roof.

Cereal maker General Mills responded to the Atkins low-carb diet craze of several years ago with a rapid switch to 100% whole grain for all its cereals-and was able to tell a story about health in a world where healthy foods had become relevant. Godin doesn't mention this, but from a marketing/public perception point of view, that switch was relatively easy even for a giant conglomerate, because several of its most popular product lines (Cheerios, Wheaties, Total) had been telling a story about health for decades.

By contrast Interstate Bakeries, whose iconic brands like Wonder Bread and Hostess Twinkies were widely perceived as non-nutritive, was not able to be convincingly healthy in that market and went bankrupt. Which is especially interesting because Wonder has tried to tell a health story for over 50 years, with its "Helps build strong bodies 8 (later changed to 12) ways" tagline-but the product sure didn't feel healthy, despite its added vitamins.

Yet Wonder is still trying to tell a health story to a skeptical world that has discovered in the meantime what real bread looks, tastes, and feels like. This is on the company's website as of June 15, 2008:

Wonder has helped America build strong bodies for over 80 years. It provides essential vitamins and minerals, an important part of your family's healthy diet. And today Wonder is more nutritious than ever before. Every slice is an excellent source of calcium and a good source of folic acid.

Back to Godin, speaking of health:

Marketers have a new kind of responsibility...If you make a fortune but end up killing people and needlessly draining our shared resources, that's neither ethically nor commercially smart, is it? Nuclear weapons have killed a tiny fraction of the number of people that unethical marketing has...I refuse to accept that there's a difference between a factory manager dumping sludge in the Hudson River (poisoning everyone downstream) and a marketing manager making up a story that ends up causing similar side effects.

Among many other examples, he comes down hard on food giant Nestle for telling a story in the 1970s that got mothers in desperately poor nations to switch from breastfeeding to infant formula, under conditions that made failure-and thus, dead babies-inevitable. In his words, there's a difference between a harmless marketing fib that the consumer tells him/herself in order to believe the story, and an outright fraud with harmful consequences, and Nestle was guilty of the latter, until an international boycott made it hurt too much.

On a related note, Godin also points out the importance of making sure the customer experience delivers on the promise of your story. Cold Stone Creamery, the ice cream chain is one of many businesses he faults for breaking the promise:

Scoopers at Cold Stone Creamery occasionally break into song. They'll sing for tips and they'll sing about the joy of ice cream. At my neighborhood Cold Stone, though, they don't sing. They sort of whine a funeral dirge. It's obvious that someone ordered them to sing, and they don't understand why and they certainly don't care...They are in the business of telling a story. And the song and the smiles and the staff are a much bigger part of that than the ice cream...Soon the hordes will stop coming when they find that the experience leaves them hollow.

Final advice from Godin:

* Marketing must take responsibility to be authentic and have integrity (something I talk about at great length in my own book Principled Profit: Marketing that Puts People First)
* When people shift their pre-existing worldview, they're ready to hear a story that reinforces the change
* Powerful stories can often be found at the junctions of apparent oxymorons like "socially conscious investing," "adventure cruise line" or even "compassionate conservative"

Theme: As consumers, we buy products because we believe the story the products tell us. It's not about the features or benefits, the "facts" involved in the purpose; it's about whether or not we believe the promise the brand is making about it stands for and how it adds meaning to our lives. Marketers, therefore should not focus on the product; instead, they should focus on telling a story that is consistent with their customers' worldview.

Audience: Marketers, defined very broadly. Could mean business folks, church people, job applicants, etc. Basically, it's anyone in the business of selling an idea.

Why I Like It: Storytelling is a very difficult concept to explain without sounding like a sheister, and Seth does it fairly well. He uses countless examples to validate his point that we are governed by story (what he means by "lies") rather than by fact. Also, he differentiates between "good" and "bad" stories with the notion of authenticity: telling a story that lives up to its promise. Several elaborate concepts regarding human nature and the psychology of decision-making are spelled out here in lay men's terms. Fantastic read!

Seth Godin always has an interesting perspective of marketing in today's society. His latest book seeks to add to that perspective with a purposely inflammatory title... All Marketers Are Liars - The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World.

Chapter List: Highlights; Got Marketing?; Step 1 - Their Worldview And Frames Got There Before You Did; Step 2 - People Notice Only The New And Then Make A Guess; Step 3 - First Impressions Start The Story; Step 4 - Great Marketers Tell Stories We Believe; Examples - Stories Framed Around Worldviews; Important Aside - Fibs And Frauds; Step 5 - Marketers With Authenticity Thrive; Competing In The Lying World; Remarkable? The Cow Has Not Left The Building; Bonus Part 1 - Master Storytellers And Those Who Are Still Trying; Bonus Part 2 - Advanced Riffs; Good Stuff To Read; So, What To Do Now?; Acknowledgments; Index; What's Your Story?

This is one of those books where you think it's going to say one thing, and it ends up telling a different tale than you expected. The general premise was easy to grasp, but I kept having to slow down to make sure I was really understanding the finer distinctions involved. Probably the best way to summarize the material is to quote from the Advanced Riffs chapter:

"Remember, the marketer tells a story. The consumer believes it and it becomes a lie. And that lie can spread from person to person. Then and only then is the marketer going to succeed and will sales grow."

Advertising that involves stating facts and comparing your product to the rest of the market is an effort that is potentially doomed to failure (or worse, doomed to be forgotten). You as a marketer have to tell a story about your product. One of the examples involved Puma tennis shoes which are marketed as a luxury "want" that will make you look cool, special, and so forth. Bottom line, it's an assembly of material used to make a shoe that costs very little when assembled in an off-shore plant. If all the consumer wants is a reliable pair of shoes, s/he can do much better with different brands that are far cheaper. But the consumer buys into the story that Puma is telling, and that story then becomes the "lie" that the consumer tells themselves to explain their attachment with the item. They then start to tell that lie to others, which can form an ideavirus that sweeps through society very quickly. Think of iPods... MP3 players have been around for quite awhile. The story of the iPod has become the lie that millions have told themselves and others. If Apple had simply tried to sell it as a portable music player with gigabytes of storage, there would have been little to differentiate it from others. Then it would have been a race to add more memory. But you can't compete with the "cool" factor of the iPod. A very successful lie...

Godin does a good job writing a book that is compelling to read. Although I think I unknowingly understood why the iPod (and other Purple Cows) were successful, I don't think I quite categorized their success as a lie that they successfully spread. This is definitely causing me to rethink what I'm being told by media... Good job!

Seth Godin provides 186 pages of logic and examples to support his notion that marketers must be storytellers. Stories are required to sell to wants. Any product beyond the simplest requires marketing to the customer's wants. Only commodities and simple products can be sold with facts addressing the needs.

Godin explains that prospects have 'worldviews' that reflect their biases, opinions, ways of thinking, etc. The marketer's job is to come up with a 'story' that 'frames' (or hooks) onto the prospect's 'worldview.' 'Frames' are the links into each aspect of the 'worldview.' These terms are defined by copious examples throughout the book.

In addition to the many business and product examples, the one example I found most interesting was his 'story' review of the recent Bush vs. Kerry election campaigns. Godin believes that Kerry failed to tell a story that the voters wanted to believe, and also Kerry was inconsistent in his story. Further, it wasn't the candidates ability or lack thereof that lost or won the race, but whether their stories resonated with the pre-existing worldviews (biases, worries, etc.) going on in the heads of the electors.

This is the same way he looks at new product launches. If the story doesn't resonate with a large enough base of prospects, it won't take off.

Seth Godin goes on to develop many spin-off points using his theme of story, framework, and worldview. He recommends that you find groups of prospects that have a proclivity to talk among themselves, and to only introduce 'wow' products. These other topics also tie back into previous books the author has written.

Overall, I think this book is a great book. It's easy to read, filled with examples, and a logical extension of his previous work.

John Dunbar

Sugar Land, TX