Marketing and the Yin-Yang Mind

Time marches on, yet I still stand by my the belief that "The Marketing Imagination" as being one of the most important books ever made about the foundational elements of a successful Marketing campaign.

Levitt describes that a 'marketing imagination' requires marketers to dance between data-driven strategy, intuition and creativity.

It's true. All the data in the world won't convince a buyer to buy if he/she doesn't want to. The same way that trying to market without data leads to a tremendous amount of wasted time, effort and money.

(Like trying to 'sell ice to Eskimos' or worse, A1 Sauce to vegetarians.)

One of the most important "truths" that Levitt uncovers for us is that marketing requires both logical - and illogical - thinking.

Logic will dictate the sequential steps of the marketing strategy itself, based on the principles of cause and effect. Yet, for each marketing tactic to be effective, it must also accomodate for the illogical, often nonsensical nature of human (and consumer) behavior.

The speed, platform and delivery methods have all changed twice over since this book was originally published.

However, the basic premise that Levitt so beautifully articulates - people want solutions to problems not products - will remain as useful to marketers of Sony WalkMan's as they will be for the future makers of 'Space Luggage' for people to use for 'out of this world' travels with SpaceX and others hawking trips to the moon. 

Pretty crazy, ain't it?

~ TK