The late Jay Levinson created the Guerrilla Marketing series. I was lucky enough to work with him early in the arc, producing four of them.
One of the core tenets of the books was that marketing was no longer merely the work of giant organizations with giant budgets. That in fact, it was possible to spread an idea with care, guts and effort, not just with money. We wanted people, particularly small businesses, to see that they could be marketers too.
Well, that's no longer a problem. In fact, it's swung so far the other way that we have a new problem.
When marketing was expensive, it was done with care. Not only by committees that worked hard to keep things consistent, but by creators who thought deeply about their long-term reputation.
Today, because noise is everywhere, we're all surrounded by a screaming horde, an open-outcry marketplace of ideas where the race to be heard appears to be the only race that matters. And so subtlety flies out the window, along with a desire to engage for the long haul. Just a troop of gorillas, all arguing over the last remaining banana.
It turns out that there's a useful response... to ignore them. To stick to the work, to the smallest possible audience, to building something worth talking about.
What actually works in a noisy environment isn't more noise—it's the challenging work of earning the benefit of people telling people.
We don't need more hustle. We need more care and generosity.
from Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect http://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/361211408/0/sethsblog~Gorilla-marketing.html
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