Money for nothing…

…and checks for free. No, I’m not going to write about Dire Straits, even though I like them very much, but about how people “expect free stuff” and about how some have the impression that they can sell marketing services at low prices, like “Underground LLC”, or vice versa, that they can buy marketing services at low prices, getting / selling qualitative products.

The truth is that marketing is not a science, you have to gain experience and success over time, gaining experience by dealing with all types of situations, products, services and projects. Expertise is everything; laptops, words and slides are just tools, not the end in itself.

Marketing is not a science, all students know that. It is not about complicated equations, solving theorems or substantial “technical” knowledge, per se, that all other sciences require, that is why probably many individuals know how to say around 3 words in specific marketing jargon and how to come up with 7 slides for a presentation; then, hocus pocus, we have a successful project. For the most part, I believe that specific jargon is abused, such as words like “innovation”, “creativity”, “differentiation” or “brand”, due to the lack of essence in the approaches, that have to be “covered” one way or another. It seems, however, that it is an easy task to sell your services, since it is enough to throw words as “innovation” and “creativity” everywhere.

After all, what is marketing, if not a science? I would say that it is a pragmatic game of ideas transposed into words and images pursuing a simple and extremely clear finality: to win over someone’s mind.

In reality, there are very few people who are really good at marketing, who have solid knowledge and extensive experience. Paradoxically, the vast majority of them do their job while remaining anonymous.