key people Seth Godin Seth Godin (1960- ) is the author of many books including This is Marketing, Purple Cow, and All Marketers are Liars, member of the Marketing Hall of Fame, and one of the world s most soughtafter speakers. Godin honed his marketing expertise as an entrepreneur. After a few years working as a software brand manager, he started his own book packaging business and founded Yoyodyne Internet marketing agency, which specialised in permission marketing a non-traditional marketing technique that advertises services and goods with the consumer s advance consent. Yahoo! acquired it three years later for $30 million. Godin later launched revenue-sharing content site Squidoo, which soon became one of the top 500 most visited websites. Godin s five golden rules of marketing are: 1. Innovate to Break Through the Noise. Doing what you ve been doing is going to get you what you ve been getting. The art of moving forward lies in understanding what to leave behind. 2. Building Trust Breeds Brand Advocacy, meaning: tap into humility and empathy to understand the customer s world. The only way to make a difference is to truly see and understand the people you seek to influence. 3. Be Authentic, Be Consistent. A brand is more than a logo. It means you made a promise. Consistency means you keep that promise, and behave how people expect you to behave. 4. Tell Great Stories. Marketing is no longer about the stuff you make, but the stories you tell. Customers don t buy a product, they buy a story. And when done right, people believe them. 5. You Can t Make Social Media About Numbers. Godin believes that the effectiveness of social media is about creating true stories that change those people for the better. David Mackenzie Ogilvy David Mackenzie Ogilvy (1911-1999) is considered the Father of Advertising . His famous quote The customer is not a moron, she s your wife represented his idea that ads did not need to be dumbed down for the consumer and should instead be rich of information that would matter to them. Ogilvy s campaigns also showed the importance of having a USP, researching the consumer, persuading prospects, influencing consumers, and creating good content. Over the years, Ogilvy and his ad agency did work for Rolls Royce, the British government, Dove, and dozens of major brands. In 1963, he published a best-seller, Confessions of an Advertising Man, which contains an impressive amount of actionable and timeless advice about advertising. Ogilvy s principles of marketing are: 1. Give the facts. The more facts you tell, the more you sell. 2. Be truthful. Always stay faithful to the truth. Consumers aren t stupid; they will catch onto you if you lie or mislead them. 3. Be helpful: help the prospect understand your product and give them valuable information and advice for free. 4. Have a big idea. Unless your campaign contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night. 5. Don t be boring. In order to gain people s interest, you need to know who they are, what their needs are, and what motivates them. 6. Understand your customer. You need to employ empathy and demonstrate that you understand your prospect. 7. Stay true to your brand. In order to achieve long-term brand consistency, you must first define your brand. ONLINE RESOURCES Great marketers 94 Marketing and advertising to breed: coltivare, far crescere to dumb down: banalizzare to hone: affinare prospect: potenziale cliente to tap into: sfruttare