This is a “Knowledge through SPAM” POST

A beautiful woman with an IQ equivalent to the combined intelligence of the three olives in her dirty martini asked what I did for a living. I could have just told her that I tell people like her what to think, so that they can mindlessly regurgitate. Then I realized, after my brain had checked-out during her half an hour non-stop babble between talking about shoes, and recanting what the pict-o-cube turned to FOX News said, that she was actually convinced she was not affected by what marketers do, and nothing would really convince her otherwise. FOX News confirmed to her that she was intelligent; a mindless media re-vomiter, and all was safe in the world.

Simplicity would be required. A very low-level of abstraction that I had not had to communicate with since I was in… oh, I don’t know… 5th grade? I struggled to figure how I could explain what I did in terms that this flesh-pod with arms (and a nice butt) could understand.

And then “SPAM to the rescue!” Sometimes SPAM is useful.. and this tasty tidbit comes to you from my copious SPAM files…

And so we begin…

You go to a party and you see an attractive woman across the room. You walk up to her and say “Hi, I’m great in bed, how ’bout it?”

This is an example of direct marketing.

You go to a party and you see an attractive woman across the room. You give your wing-man ten dollars to approach the attractive female and comment “Hi, my friend over there (pointing to you) is great in bed, how
’bout it?”

This is an example of advertising.

You go to a party and you see an attractive woman across the room. You give two of your female friends ten bucks each to stand within earshot of her and talk about how great you are in bed and what a great guy you are.

This is an example of PR.

You go to a party and you see an attractive female across the room. She immediately walks over and says, “Hi, I hear you’re great in bed, how ’bout it?”

This is an example of the power of branding.

Simple, direct, precise. Sometimes SPAM is more useful than you think. So, the next time you try and explain to someone what you do in marketing, just use this. It’s a lot easier and more precise an explanation than having them nod off somewhere between your strategic matrix discussion and your analytics discourse.