Creating and Connecting Value

Marketing: The American Marketing Association defines marketing as the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large (Approved July 2013). 

The definition is fairly straight forward besides the seemingly insignificant word "value".

Our goal over the next few days is to further define the term value. How does our faith impact the word and subsequently form our perspective on marketing? We could even go to the extent of asking what is marketable?

Advertising alone is a $70 billion industry in the United States. This is just a small portion of marketing. 

If you recall from Introduction to Business, there are three fundamental terms and questions that follow them that drive our program of teaching. 

• • How do we Create value?

  • How do we Connect value? 

  • How do we Capture value?

To answer the question, "Is marketing bad", we must start with the a different question. That being, "how do we create value" or "how do we create sustainable opportunities for people to thrive and flourish"? By nature I believe marketing is inherently neutral. Meaning, marketing has no value in and of itself. Marketing is a tool, much like every tool, that has its value determined through its use. It is how we use marketing that determines whether marketing is good or bad. 

1. Does the product help people thrive and flourish? 

The first rests in the created value. Is the product being marketed helping people thrive and flourish? David Ogilvy discusses this very question in Confessions of an Advertising Man by stating that it is fundamentally wrong and deceptive for a marketing person to push a product they would not use. At a baseline, this is a great starting point. You should never market or advertise a product you would not use.

Before we push forward it is worthwhile to consider a second component to created value. While consumers may perceive the created value to be helping them thrive and flourish, perception is not always reality. A closet full of the newest Nikes that accentuate your lineup of clothes or investing in a slightly better aftermarket stereo are highly debatable value creators. We could make a much easier biblical argument for these goods encouraging consumerism rather than biblical living according to a Christian worldview.  

Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘Consider your ways! You have sown much, but harvest little; you eat, but there is not enough to be satisfied; you drink, but there is not enough to become drunk; you put on clothing, but no one is warm enough; and he who earns, earns wages to put into a purse with holes.’” - Haggai 1:5-6

2. How is the product being communicated? What about the product is being communicated? 

The second issue lies in what is being communicated in the form of marketing and advertising. In form I am referring to the intentional psychological manipulations used by marketers. While entire classes cover how psychology is used to manipulate consumers, we are going to briefly discuss the concept. The Lorax, is a very average movie based on the Dr. Seuss' novel. The movie's antagonist is Aloysuis O'Hare, the greedy mayor of Thneedville and the founder of O'Hare Air. O'Hare Air has found a way to sell clean air to the smog filled citizens of Thneedville. To drum up sales, O'Hare is pitched on the following concept: 

Now watch the movie again and look for all the stereotypes it portrays about modern advertising and commercials. You should easily be able to come up with 5. Why are these 5 things so common in advertising? Why are marketers using these themes so consistently that a pattern has been formed? Finally, how are these patterns impacting you as a person? 

You are heavily inundated by marketing. You are likely being heavily formed, or at a minimum, being somewhat formed by marketing. 

To start we are going to analyze a couple commercials. You don't have to admit to any formation but we can certainly begin analyzing what is going on in the world that surround us. We will watch these ads three times: 1. Only sound, 2. Only video and 3. Video and Sound.

• 1. What is the Product?

  2. How does it work? 

  3. Why is it better than the competition? 

  4. What vision of the good life is this commercial selling? 

While you are watching, please complete the video production sheet that includes both the scene (visual) and audio.

Student Activity

For the following two videos, describe what you are hearing and seeing. Following this task, analyze why the advertisers used the specifics sights and sounds.

• 1. What is the Product?

  2. How does it work? 

  3. Why is it better than the competition? 

  4. What vision of the good life is this commercial selling?

  5. What did you learn from the audio vs. the visual?

Student Activity 2

• • Select a Super Bowl Ad or find your favorite commercial (at minimum one you have seen before) 

  • Evaluate the Ad

    • • Listen to the Ad

      • Watch the ad with the sound off

      • Listen and Watch the add simultaneously

  • Task

    • • Fill our the Visual/Audio Sheet (focus on the big moments of what you saw and heard)

      • What is the product? 

      • What does the company do? 

      • What is being communicated in the ad? (This is meant to be a deep thought question)