I recently had to watch a video of Seth Godin's speech at Google. Godin is an author of six bestsellers including "Permission Marketing" and "All Marketers Are Liars". He spoke about how a marketer must tell a story with their product. If you make something worth talking about, people will talk about it, the brand will spread, and sales will increase.
Advertisers assume that more ads will sell more stuff. This is no longer true. A brand will grow organically with word of mouth. Godin talked about "Fancy Feast" cat food. These tiny cans of food sell for about twice the amount as regular cat food. Cats obviously don't care what they eat, so why do people buy it?? "Fancy Feast" is able to tell a story to consumers (people, not cats). They buy the food for well-being. The food is for the owners, not the cats.
The success of Google is due to the site making people feel a certain way. People talk about Google because it is personal. People care about Google. Seth Godin describes wearing a Google t-shirt out in public and the responses he got. One woman actually said, "Do you work at Google? Google is my friend!"
Seth Godin's speech made me think about how product placement makes people talk. Instead of seeing a television commercial for a product, people see their favorite characters using the product. This tells a story about why the product is used and how it works. Consumers can associate Ford vehicles with "24" or Victoria's Secret with the cool, confident women on "Desperate Housewives". They can then talk about the shows with friends while talking about the products used. Part of the success of product placement is that it tells a story about the product. It makes the consumer associate the product with some of their favorite shows.
