Okay, this post is for those who are wondering what the last post was really all about. (BMinto, you were ever so slightly warm, but no cigar.)

First, I apologize for the fact that one of my WordPress plug-ins was malfunctioning and keeping a lot of folks from commenting. (Believe me when I say this annoyed me as much as it did you!)

Second, I probably should have given a little more information upfront about the recent experience I had.

Third, there’s a product launch right now that is lying to us (a lot) and doing so in the name of honesty. The guy behind it is making a whole lot of noise about honesty being the answer to untold riches, and (among other things) I’m here to tell you he is not being very honest about that.

What? Okay, first let’s get back to the original question of the last post, Is Honest Marketing An Oxymoron? — my answer, the only valid answer, and maybe this will surprise (and even dismay) some of you — yes, yes, yes! Honest marketing is an oxymoron! It is an out-and-out contradiction!!

Now before too many of you start to reach for a handful of fruit to throw at my blog, let me explain my meaning.

Why do people smoke? Yes, I’m starting my explanation with another question. Sorry about that, but I do have a point. If you ask people how or why they got started smoking, about eight out of ten will tell you they got started smoking because they thought it was cool.

Surprisingly, smokers don’t generally tell you they started smoking because the smoke tasted so good, or because they enjoyed the initial dizziness or all the initial coughing (i.e., their bodies trying to tell them they were putting poison into their lungs).

Okay, not so surprisingly.

So, even today, after all that has occurred and all the government regulation and all the people who have suffered and died from smoking, is the average cigarette manufacturer always and completely honest about their product?

No; and yes I can imagine some are thinking right now that the tobacco industry is an extreme example and that you don’t want to be that kind of marketer, and good for you. But the point is…

People don’t buy a product, or a service for that matter.

We buy a feeling.

Okay? If you disagree with that premise, I can’t help you, but if you see that it’s true, then what is a marketer selling? Products? Services? Or feelings?

Feelings, of course.

And the experience I was not talking about in the last post was a big wake up call. It drove this home for me, and I’ve been mulling it over ever since.

It’s an experiment you can try yourself if you like. After a brief discussion with another marketer, we decided to set up two email lists under two pseudonyms. For one list we wrote upbeat promotions of various products and services, mostly in the online marketing niche. For the other list, we wrote very matter-of-fact descriptions of these same products and services, pointing out what was worthwhile about them and what wasn’t so worthwhile.

Can you guess what happened? After three months, not only had the second list performed abysmally, most of the subscribers had unsubscribed! Meanwhile, the first list had performed rather well, and most of the subscribers are still subscribed.

So what does this tell you? While people complain constantly about marketers not being honest, what is our behavior saying? Well… it’s kind of saying, all that honesty isn’t really what we’re looking for either.

Now this experience was a harsh reminder for me. I kinda already knew it, but I’d drifted considerably: people don’t buy a product or service; we buy a feeling.

So what feeling are buyers looking for? Are we wanting to buy something that makes us feel like we just bought an inferior product? How about something that makes us feel like we don’t have much of a chance to make it work?

No? So what is the feeling we’re looking for?

It’s the dream. The dream, the dream, the dream. I’ll say it again, the dream — the dream that, if I buy this product, it will renew my life’s experience in some significant way, e.g., it will make me invulnerable to disease, it will make me fabulously rich, it will make me look like a movie star, etc., etc.

So yeah, honest marketing is an oxymoron — at least entirely honest marketing.

Because as marketers we are not going to sell anything by dwelling just as much on the drawbacks of a product or service as on the potential benefits, which would be the truly honest approach.

We are not going to sell anything if we don’t communicate the dream that everyone is really buying.

No matter how many people bitch about this or that marketer being dishonest about this or that product or service, the fact is they bought it from that marketer, and the reason they bought it was because that marketer sold them on the dream, and any time you do that, you will be subject — at least occasionally — to accusations of dishonesty, and any time you don’t, you won’t sell.

Now initially, when I was so harshly reminded of this, it was a little depressing — and not just because I started wondering if maybe I’d been a little too honest lately.

But after a little more thought, and a couple of discussions, I began to realize that it’s not a bad thing at all. Yes, we are all addicts of hyperbole, but no matter how much we complain, our behavior says most of us are fairly happy to be so addicted, and that yes, despite all protestations, on some level we actually want to be sold to, so long as it isn’t a hard sell and so long as what’s being sold is that special feeling…

So yes, honesty is the best policy, and I encourage everyone to be careful not to build expectations too high, and to be as honest as possible, including me — but…

… if you hear from a guy making a lot of noise about plain ol’ honesty being the answer to untold riches… keep in mind that he’s lying.

There is a reason this is called marketing, people!; what marketers are really selling is the right to dream, and… we all want — and I think we even all deserve — to dream.

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