Department of "Night is Day"

Just listening to Seth on the Church of the Customer podcast and, in speaking about the necessity for the stories marketers tell to be authentic in order to be sustainable, heard him say, "the best lies are true."  Huh?

See, this was the problem I was having with the whole idea of using "lie" to mean "story."  If that were the case, the above quote would read, "the best stories are true."  That makes a whole lot more sense.  But it's also a whole lot less catchy!

A story isn't a lie.  It's a story.  And, like Seth says, authentic stories about products or services or experiences are stories that actually coincide with their perceived "reality" (at least by most of the people who experience them.)  Inauthentic stories (now, that gets pretty close to "lie," no? especially if I'm aware of its inauthenticity when I tell it) don't have much alignment with people's experiences. 

I still haven't gotten my copy of the book from Amazon, so I haven't read it yet.  What I'm reading online (and now hearing) are important ideas about customers buying things that align with their identity, beliefs, values, which Seth calls our "worldview."  This term has a rich history in philosophy and psychology, coming from the German, "weltanschauung."  For what it's worth, I think he's dead on in his thinking.  It's what psychologists mean when they say that a behavior is either ego-syntonic or ego-dystonic.  It's what we mean when we say, "isn't that just like me to do that?", or "it was so unlike me to enjoy that movie." 

Now, our sense of ourselves is clearly just that, our own sense, which means it is at least in part a product of our imagination.  Much of our "self image" is made up, a social construction we use to guide ourselves through the world.   This isn't to say we're aware of this construction.  Most of the time we're not.  It's simply, "operative."  We have some common cultural templates which we use in constructing these stories, and we recognize those when we see them in movies, novels, or ads for watches.

I gather this is what Seth calls our "lie" about ourselves.

So, telling stories that people will relate to from within their own constructed self-image/worldview is absolutely the job of marketing.  Things are important  raw materials which we to construct and consistently be that self.  Or to transition into another self, one that we aspire to be.

Anyway, I'm eager to sit down with the whole book.  Sounds great. 

But, am I the only one who thinks that this "lying" business muddies more than it clarifies?

UPDATE: In case you were wondering how powerful these story/lies could be, check this out!  Like these guys said, "who the f*** are you?"

Comments

[Jackie Huba]

I think it's a real catch-22. As you said, "All Marketers are Liars" is way more catchy and provocative than "All Marketers are Storytellers." I think the book has gotten a lot of word of mouth because of the title.

That said, it's imperative that the real message of the book become clear right away, which is that marketers create a story which becomes the "lie" that customers tell themselves when they buy the product. It's a good lie vs. a bad lie (which Seth further explains in the book.)

BTW, thanks for listening to the podcast!

[Johnnie Moore]

Tom, yes, I think it does muddy the waters, and I think there's a role for books that do that. I have found it difficult to write a coherent review of Seth's book as I'm not too sure what it means. I quite like that.

What's perhaps most interesting here is the realisation that that these stories we make up about who we are or how the world is have some downsides. And the thought that they may not be the truth is both scary and exciting.

It's exciting because it gives us a glimpse of greater possibilities. (You've written recently about the excitement of wildly improbable things happening.) Scary, because we're quite attached to the security that our fixed worldviews apppear to offer us.

Beneath the stories are our actual felt experiences. When we talk about those (angry, sad, happy etc), and when we name our stories for what they are - fantasies we make up - then I think we're getting close to the source of authenticity.

[Tom Asacker]

Great post Tom. And may I suggest that the "lie" is not found in the intent of the marketer. The "lie" is the difference between the story behind the product or service and objective reality (whatever the hell that is!). It's a "lie" to believe that purchasing certain products actually make us sexier, smarter, better, etc. But that's how and why we choose what we choose.