Leadership

Anti-Product Marketing Is Just Nonsense

By Ira Kalb

Updated on: May 31, 2011 / 12:05 AM EDT / MoneyWatch

The words "anti" and "marketing" are about as compatible as oil and water. Yet, when Jay Sinha, a marketing professor at Temple University's Fox School of Business, used the phrase, anti-marketing, in his 2007 book, it seemed to catch on. Sinha argued that traditional marketing strategies were no longer effective because people were put off by heavy-handed tactics.

But people should be leery of pronouncements of the "death of" anything. How many articles or books predicting the "death of" or "end of" something have turned out to be efforts at notoriety rather than predictors of reality?

The definition seems too broad
In defining anti-marketing, Sinha casts a wide net, rejecting over-marketing, sales pressure, too much choice, following a script, signage on stores, among other things. His list covers just about every type of marketing. But I would argue that much of what he criticizes is really just ineffective marketing -- and that often is in the eyes of the beholder.

Good marketing is based on the notion that you know your target audience and you do your best to give them what they want - not what they don't want. Tricking or pressuring people into buying your product has never been good - no matter what label you attach to it.

For example, how do you define "over marketing"? Only the audience that is on the receiving end of the message can determine what is too much. A chocoholic may desire more messages about good chocolate, but a vanilla lover may think one message about it is too much. Fourteen year old girls saw the movie Titanic, which was over 3 hours long, an average of three times because they wanted to see more of Leonardo DiCaprio, while I thought it was too long, and could barely sit through one showing of it.

"Anti-marketing" in practice

You could argue that Domino's started the anti-marketing trend by disparaging their pizza in commercials. They promoted negative comments from focus groups, such as "the crust tastes like cardboard." It makes sense that they wanted to:

Grab attention
Show the marketplace that they can be objective about their own products
Let people know that Domino's is listening to their complaints
Communicate that Domino's pizza is now better than it was before

What doesn't make sense is that, by disparaging their own product, they were implying that their loyal customers were wrong to like their pizza in the first place. Moreover, why should anyone trust Domino's if they sell products they admit are sub-par? A third problem is the cynical prospects will view this negatively as a gimmick.

A better way to achieve their marketing objectives without creating the negative "side effects" is to tell the market that they have listened to customers and improved their product. Yes, I know, they might lose some of the publicity the anti-marketing has generated, but that publicity comes with baggage and risk.

The short-term success of their campaign may prove me wrong (I would argue that a good positive campaign would have been more successful), but I believe they will have problems in the longer run for the reasons given, and I am not alone.

Recently Miracle Whip has been running ads "We're not for everyone" that include negative endorsements interspersed with positive comments. So what if some people like and dislike your product?

Branding recognizes that every product has a target audience. There are people that love and hate Apple, Microsoft, Google, and just about every successful brand. So what? If Kraft wants more people to buy MW, wouldn't they generate more sales if they featured why people like it, how they use it, and when it works better than plain old mayonnaise?

Have marketers forgotten how to communicate product benefits in a positive way? I don't think so. I would bet on a good positive marketing campaign over a negative one any day. Just one of so many examples is the five dollar foot long commercial. Even with low production value, it has helped to propel Subway past McDonalds as the world's largest restaurant chain.

Do you think an anti-marketing campaign will give you better results than positive marketing?

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Ira Kalb is president of Kalb & Associates, an international consulting and training firm, and professor of marketing at the Marshall School of Business at University of Southern California (USC). He has won numerous awards for marketing and teaching, authored ten books and over 30 articles, created marketing inventions that have made clientts and students more successful. He is frequently interviewed by various media for his expertise in branding, crisis management and strategic marketing. Follow him on Twitter.
image courtesy of flickr user, eblaser