If you want to be meaningful, you have to mean it. I believe that. Mostly. And this definition makes ‘meaningful marketing’ a potential oxymoron.
The minute a person, or group of people, make a conscious decision to alter behaviour for personal gain, something changes. Here’s a made-up anecdote to prove the point:
There is a lady called Berta, who makes jam at home and sells it in her local town hall. She does so out of passion, but one day she overhears some people talking about her jam: “I love her hand-drawn labels, so cute. Much more authentic than supermarket jam!”
Realising the effect this had, Berta decides to add some new hand-made touches, adding a ribbon, writing small messages on the jars and so on. Her sales really take off and before you know it she’s actively thinking about what new ‘authentic’ touches she can apply to build on the interest.
It’s very possible that Berta might have started to add these things anyway, but the minute her actions started being led by the desire to sell, something small, but powerful changed: her intentions.
This is marketing: when a conscious desire for gain begins to influence what you make or how you promote it. And I’m not saying it’s ‘bad’ – that would be unhelpfully simplistic. Berta is still a lovely lady, she still loves making jam, and of course she has every right to promote it. In fact, what she goes on to do may be very similar to what she would have done without overhearing her customers talk.
It’s only her intention that changed…
But when we do things or make things, our intentions bleed into the final experience and that’s where things can go wrong. Small touches, uses of language, design choices all carry the DNA of our hidden desires. At the blunter end of the spectrum, we might say our strategy is showing, but the brush strokes aren’t always that broad. In fact, as I write this, I’m reminded of a Zeus Jones blog post that talks about the subtler end of exactly this.
Author, Jennifer Egan, explores a similar concept in the characters of her book, Look at Me:
“I’m interested in that chasm between the public and the private. In Look at Me, there’s this whole idea of the “shadow self.” One character is always looking at people and trying to find what she calls their ‘shadow self,’ the true self that they’re trying to keep hidden from their more public persona.”
I’m a fan of sliding scales, so here is the one this conversation operates on:
At the far right end, you have brilliant marketeers and designers who can manufacture experiences so precisely that the customer/user perceives a rich, authentic experience, ‘believing’ and feeling the designed intentions of the brand. And of course, we’re happy to pay to be cheated - if it’s done well.
On the far left of the scale, you have people that do things entirely because they love and believe in them, and the same effect is created. But both these extremes are rare circumstances. It’s more likely you sit in the middle somewhere, like Berta. You believe it, but you also fake it a bit.
In a nutshell, this is why aligning the motivations of businesses and customers is one of the most important things we can do. If they are aligned, then no trick is necessary and no bleed is damaging. We can execute our intentions proudly and openly, allowing them to seep into every corner of the experiences we create. Maybe this will even lead to unexpected value, that we didn’t ‘design’ intentionally.
Unless you’re the Derren Brown of marketing, your true intentions will bleed, somewhere, possibly unexpected. So my advice is to align your motivations with your audience’s, to ensure that your intention bleed always turns into positive experiences.
