Hugh observes
Writing about marketing without losing all self-respect is harder than it looks.
Couldn’t have put it better myself, so, there, I’ve let Hugh do it for me.
He does so in the context of some amusing and well-argued feedback about the Markets as Conversations idea. Brian Moffatt commented on one of Hugh’s posts:
I haven’t got a fucking clue what you’re talking about, to be honest about it, other than understanding that people are basically psychotic, so there’s a basis for a conversation there, I suppose, but I really don’t want to have a conversation about the shit I buy, and I wouldn’t have to if everything thrown on the market wasn’t beta quality in the first fucking place. I’d be fucking amazed if everyone stopped presuming that I want a relationship. I don’t. Any more than I want messages. I want anonymous sex. No talking. It’s always amazing and renews my faith in our species more than any product and or service, and if you and the business model Train set don’t get this, call me and we’ll talk.
Hmm, I think I get the point but then again, here Brian is having a conversation about his desire to avoid one.
That word relationship is another one that causes confusion in marketing arguments. Partly because admen are fond of pretending they can make us fall in Love with their ideas. No wonder people resist that kind of thinking and that kind of relationship.
However, I might well say, in moments of exasperation “I don’t want a relationship to (say) British Telecom”. As soon as I say that with any feeling, of course I am putting myself in relationship to them. A relationship of antipathy.
And if I want something to change, even if I want to get rid of them, I have got to relate to them somehow to achieve my goal.
So I fear that Brian is stuck with having relationships of some kind with people and organisations he might prefer to avoid. Now what sort of relationship he and they want… well that’s a different matter. I guess they’ll have to talk about it….
