TYPES AND APPROACHES OFÂ
ANTI-MARKETING
By its nature, this is not a comprehensive list, but I have tried to list as many as I can think of
Postmodernist marketing (or anti-marketing, as I like to call it) has many shapes and sizes. Basically, these are the strains of marketing which traditionalists consider niche, extreme or plain ridiculous. This is why they fall into the postmodern category. And yet, they somehow work in the right circumstances, generally relying on people reacting as people - in other words, illogically and unpredictably.
Most traditional marketing relies on spreadsheets, funnels, charts, data, statistics and generally pointing the possible customer in the right direction.
These approaches pretty much rely on none of that.
Some say that 21st century man and woman do not want to be predictable and would far prefer to act out of character than to be pigeon-holed by a statistic. Others just say that postmodern or anti-marketing is just a reflection of people showing their humanity in all its glorious chaotic, worrying, absurd and humorous forms. You be the judge.
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(picture shows Marmite's minimalist marketing campaign)
So here a few types of postmodern or anti-marketing.
REVERSE-PSYCHOLOGY
This really comes about when the market has reached a point that customers are bored and there's little market credulity, probably due to over-marketing. People are simply tired of what they are being shown and need to be shaken to wake them up.
Marketeers need to use a bit of magic. Shake some glitter over their products to get attention.
And telling everyone that their product is not very good, expensive, or forbidden in some way, will certainly do that. The English textbook in the photo should not be saying that learning English is difficult. And yet, people laugh and pick the book up. Because it's different. Risky. Dangerous. Painfully, brutally honest. This is something the potential customer can believe. Suddenly, it's not all smiling faces and everyone speaking another language easily.
Marmite are the classic anti-marketeers with their 'you either love or hate' Marmite campaigns, acknowledging that their product isn't for everyone and actually using the haters in their campaign, whilst Yorkie chocolate biscuits proudly stated on the wrapper that it was meant for men only.
The reaction was predictable outrage. But did it harm business? Of course not. It created a 'buzz' and lots of media attention. Which is always excellent news in marketing. And... sales went up, particularly in the girl and woman sector, which is crazy when you think about it.
Do the wrong thing and improve sales. That's reverse psychology marketing.
PRINCIPLED SELLING
Mostly the brainchild of speaker/marketing guru, Gloucestershire born, David Tovey. Clever book which concentrates on selling ethically and placing the customer centre stage. Tovey realises that with the growth in importance of the internet, marketeers are having to radically rethink strategy. Gone are the days when they could 'force' products onto a reluctant market. Customers talk to each other over the internet now. They hold the power. Marketing people have to change their habits and not just be scrupulous about the truth, but now have to build relationships with potential customers. It's the long game or nothing at all. Gone are sales funnels and money-orientated strategies. And in comes respect and care - not just for customers but also for colleagues, competitors and products. Principled selling is a natural extension of trust-based marketing, where the customer learns to trust the seller, and vice-versa, this establishing a long-term relationship.
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RETRO MARKETING
This is one of the easiest aspects of postmodern marketing to describe and yet one of the most difficult to justify. Â Put simply, it is a hearkening back to an age gone by for marketing inspiration. Â Marketing people generally see the past in peachy sunsets when it was a simpler, happier (and cheaper) life. Â All nonsense, of course, but if watching a Hovis advertisement or a Galaxy chocolate commercial, then you would be forgiven for thinking that things were much better then. Â
On the other hand, marketeers who use retro marketing (or chronology) have been accused of lacking creativity and not focusing on new ways to market and sell. Â Plus, it is far easier to rehash an old Coca Cola ad than create a new multi-million dollar one. Â
Whatever your thoughts on this, it is a powerful tool  and relies very much on the customers' nostalgia for the past.  Take the mini in the ad. in the picture.  A perfect icon for a better, more successful, fun age in Britain.  The fact that it was a small, slow, cramped car and, as my father used to say, as dangerous as driving a paper bag, is not important.  It is the nostalgia that is important and sells whatever is placed in, on or near this smiley little car, because it was loved as symbol of the swinging sixties.
MINIMALIST MARKETING
This might seem a slightly odd addition to the postmodern anti-marketing family, but minimalist marketing has become quite important, especially in Japan and the USA.  It is mostly a rebellion against the big brands. Suddenly, people do not want to be a walking billboard for some multinational company.  Small, independent companies have reacted by taking all branding and logos from their products. The picture shows a fantastic little restaurant in London which does not have a name.  It just has a street number to identify it.  And yet it does really well, because it is known for its great food and not for its brand name.Â
If you want to get a great account of how the large corporations are swallowing the world with their brands in an almost Orwellian marketing nightmare, then have a look at Naomi Klein's book, 'No Logo'.  It is a frightening account of where 'big brand' marketing is going and where 'the brand is not a reflection of quality, but a reflection of what the marketing department wants it to stand for.'Â
(https://www.amazon.co.uk/No-Logo-Naomi-Klein/dp/000734077X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1531912770&sr=1-1&keywords=no+logo+by+naomi+klein)
STORYTELLING
Very much the brainchild of self-styled marketing guru, Seth Godin. What takes Storytelling into the postmodern, anti-marketing Top Ten, is that its first rule is: it is not based on facts. They are irrelevant to the sales process.
People believe stories, because they are compelling, interesting and very human. They don't appeal to logic, reason or statistics.
The classic storytelling ad of all time was the Gold Blend coffee love saga. This was a story that people wanted to believe. A ridiculous romance while selling jars of coffee. Many others have followed.
Nowadays, it has been taken to the incredible storytelling lengths with marketing people actually making a full length movie to advertise their product - in this case, the Catalonian lager, Estrella Dam a proper movie with a plot and famous actors - all drinking lager at every possible opportunity.
Now, you are probably wondering what this aged, yellowing drawing of a building and a lamp-post has to do with anything. Well, it's in Ramsgate in Kent and was used recently by a language school for residential accommodation.
So what, I hear you say. Drum roll, please. The drawing was, in fact, sketched by none other than Mr Vincent Van Gogh, while he lived in Ramsgate. Now, if that isn't a great story, then I don't know what is. Surely customers and students will love to know that they are actually living in a Van Gogh drawing?
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DARK MARKETING
Very much indebted to Stephen Brown for this, not that he indulges in it, of course, But he talks brilliantly about all aspects in his brilliant book, 'Brands and Branding' (2016). This is the murky area of 'dirty tricks' or bad taste marketing. Dirty tricks speaks for itself: denigrating the competition, being 'sneaky' or even physical violence in some way. Just one example - a sneaky one. WH Smiths always asks to look at passengers' boarding cards at in airport departure lounges when buying something. Apparently, this has nothing to do with security - it is purely an exercise in amassing marketing data. That is a little sneaky.
As regards denigrating the competition, well, saying that Hugo Boss made SS uniforms in the last war, or Colonel Saunders was convicted of manslaughter, or that Coci Chanel spied for the Nazis, might be seen as deliberately damaging their brands.
Stephen Brown categories dark marketing into 5 deliciously mean areas, beginning with Light Dark and ending with Fright Dark. It is a worryingly humorous breakdown. For example, Light Dark might be naming your restaurant Fawlty Towers and then deliberately giving appalling service, whilst, at the end of the extreme, Fright Dark covers websites selling illegal drugs or promoting hatred in all its worst forms. The picture shows exact toy gun replicas made in China and aimed at the child market in America. Probably a case of Quite Dark there.
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ACCIDENTAL MARKETING
This makes into my Top Ten anti-marketing techniques simply because it is not intended, for good or ill. It is not the result of marketing strategy, but just the result of some random event.
The classic example was Chanel No.5, the perfume. Legend has it that sales were not that good at the beginning until one extremely lucky event for Chanel. Marilyn Monroe was asked by a slightly intrusive reporter what she wore in bed at night. She replied: "Just a dab of Chanel No.5 behind each ear." You can imagine what happened to Chanel No.5 sales the next day.
Just a lucky event which sparked sales.
Then there's the story of Mentos, the minty sweet. Again. sales were not bad, but then some kid experimented in his garage with a tub of Mentos and a vat of cola. The resultant chemical reaction was an instant hit on YouTube and rapidly went viral. Next day, Mentos sold out across the US as kids attempted to copy the experiment. The strange thing here was that the marketeers of Mentos had no idea what was happening. After all, they were selling a mint, not a frothy bomb!
It's not all good stuff though. Gerald Ratner owned a jewellery company many years ago. One day he said, in an unguarded moment that all his stores sold cheap rubbish. It was meant as a joke, but the following week, sales plummeted.
And finally, the picture shows a menu from a popular pub chain. Timing is everything marketing and this campaign came out just days before the horse meat scandal hit many supermarkets across the UK. It was withdrawn immediately!
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SHOCK MARKETING (or SHOCKVERTISING)
Very easy to see why this gets into a postmodern, anti-marketing list.  The first real shockvertising rock was dropped into the marketing pond a few years back with the Benetton baby.  For those of you not familiar with the baby, this was a campaign which caused maximum furore, because it depicted a newborn baby, gore and all.  Critics said this was not an image they wanted to see on a billboard every morning on the way to work.  Admirers said: what's more wonderful than a newborn baby? The Benetton marketing team licked their lips as the argument raged across newspapers and the internet.  Since then, Benetton has pioneered shock marketing with posters of starving children in Africa; photoshopped pictures of the Pope kissing an Islamic mullah etc. Essentially absolutely nothing to do with their clothing range.  Benetton achieved its aim of the brand getting maximum publicity for a very long time for all the wrong reasons. But who cares?Â
The idea was to make the headlines.  Why?  Because marketing people firmly believe that people quickly forget the context, but will subliminally remember the brand.  As a bye-product, it might even attract the rebellious among us, particularly the younger generation, to wear Benetton clothes as a gesture of defiance.
The picture shows SKY's attempt at shock marketing with their poster advertising their new music channel.
ETHICAL MARKETING
Ethical Marketing stands tall in postmodernist marketing as the holier-than-thou approach. It is very much a product of the new honesty that the internet has brought about. Cynics might say that companies are just seeing this as a new niche market to explore - where they appear concerned about the quality of life, but really just see this as just another sales path.
Ethical marketing stems from the simple belief that behaviour defines the brand more than marketing. Ethical products might command a slightly higher price (e.g. Fairtrade coffee, organic vegetables etc.), but they producers argue that it is worth it. The consumer will be healthier, as will the planet. Even the big corporations (not surprisingly) are trying to hitch their wagon to the ethical train. Shell and BP have new flower logos, while McDonalds are now selling themselves as a healthy alternative. Micro-breweries are also enjoying a new popularity as they expound the authenticity of their beers, which are made in the old ways and don't contain chemicals and preservatives and are not marketed and sold across the board to the masses.
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The image is of the Hook Norton brewery in Gloucestershire, which still resists modernisation and retains all the old ways of brewing beer.
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SACRED SELLING
This is probably as far from traditional sales and marketing as you could possibly get. Sacred Selling bases itself on a very simple foundation: that it offers genuine value and real care for its customers. It's primarily aimed at front-line selling (e.g. tele-selling) and offers solutions like being relaxed, natural and authentic in all sales conversations. Making money is never a prime reason for work - it's far more the joy of serving. The extremely admirable mantra is -'You’ll develop real relationships with people and many of those people will gladly purchase what you are offering right on the spot. And even when they don’t, you’ll both feel good about the conversation.'
Have a look at these two site for more:
https://www.heartofbusiness.com
http://pinkcoattails.com/sacred-selling/
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TRUST-BASED MARKETING
Trust-based marketing is really exactly that. Rather than pursuing sales relentlessly and seeing clients as bags of money, TBM relies on building relationships and establishing trust between the buyer and seller. In a way, it sits very easily next to Sacred and Principled Selling. All are aimed at giving the customer more than just a sale. Suddenly the sales and marketing team are all good friends with the customer. They're fun, happy people, who are there to help the customer in all ways. For more on TBM, have a look at this excellent article by Andrea Howe:
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http://www.valuablecontent.co.uk/blog/trust-based-marketing-4-ways-to-up-the-ante
I could go on and on and on, listing more and more bizarre and extreme forms of marketing and selling which have sprung up over the last few years and have (allegedly) their own gang of followers. I'm not saying these approaches are wrong or that they don't work. They all probably do... and don't. The internet is like that. You can create your own piece of marketing genius and get it immediately out there. And so, we could carry on listing stuff like Sticky Marketing, Stickier Marketing, Agile Marketing, good old Digital Marketing, Seth Godin's Purple Cow Marketing and my favourite, Defensive Pessimism, which is about as bleak as marketing can get.
The illustration is from Stephen Brown's brilliant pastiche of a novel (The Marketing Code) of Dan Brown's infinitely more sellable product.
Marvellous tongue-in-cheek lampoon of the whole postmodern, anti-marketing genre . This is just one page (see illustration) , which begins with the wonderful paragraph below and then goes into a truly mesmerising list of all possible postmodern marketing alternatives, ending with the quite brilliant: 'Three-Times-a-Lady-Marketing.' It is both funny and worryingly sad at the same time.
'Nano-marketing was theirs, as was New Marketing, New new Marketing, Nearly Nearly-new Marketing, New and Improved Marketing, As-good-as-new Marketing, Nova Marketing, Neue Marketing, Nu-Marketing and, naturally, New-Age Marketing...'
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https://www.amazon.co.uk/Marketing-Code-Stephen-Brown/dp/1904879888
