Thoughts on Marketing : Why Marketing is an Art?

If you’re passionate about modern art (like me), but you don’t understand it (like me), you probably gone to a modern art exhibition, where you felt like lost and dumb (but not too much), among those people who put very long scarfs in august…

Here you stand in front of a canvas, where two big blots are spilled there, the one in the right is black and the other in the left side is in yellow, they are separated in the middle with an inclined red line. And then you ask:
– What on earth is this? Everybody can do this. Why do these two dots and a line are exposed in a gallery?
And it gets even worse when you know the price of the painting…

While you’re discussing the worthy of this artwork, the artist who made this wonderful piece notices you and asks you:
– Do you like it?
At this moment, you take the scarf man posture and you answer:
– YES!
But you can’t stop there, a scarf man must say more than a yes, you must pronounce the scarf men’s phrase, otherwise, you lose your credibility. So, you add:
– Can you tell me about the inspiration and the mystery of this stunning work?

And the artist starts telling his story…
– When I was young, I was living in poor country, I was passionate about art, so I started drawing when I had twelve years old, but I didn’t have enough money to buy colored pencils so I was drawing with coal…
– I was bullied at school, every day they beat me until I bleed but I hide it from my mom who was sick, to not make her worried…
– When I had eighteen my mom died, then I decided to take a new beginning and pursue my passion… I came to this country where I fought to become a famous artist, taste the feeling of success and finally see light at the end of the road.

• Black blot symbolizes the coal drawing and poor childhood;
• Yellow blot symbolizes the success and happy life;
• Red line symbolizes the violence and the fight to reach success.

After this, all what you want to say is: Shut up and take my money.

Okay, if you kept reading till here you may think that the title is wrong; I’m clearly narrating a story about a man in gallery with an artist trying to explain to that man why he painted two dotes and a line. Where is marketing here?  

Well, tell me who can convince someone that two dots and line could be worth 4,000$, or a banana taped to the wall could be worth 120,000$? Only an artist can do that.
They are masters in putting value on their work, to sell you something you couldn’t imagine to buy or at least convince you that it worth that price (not the banana though).

To be a good marketer, you should consider your product as an artwork and sell it as an artist.

And in the next posts we will see how to do it.
So, this is why Marketing is (literally) an Art.

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