All Marketers Are Liars: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World [Hardcover]

Seth Godin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 23, 2005

Every marketer tells a story. And if they do it right, we believe them. We believe that wine tastes better in a $20 glass than a $1 glass. We believe that an $80,000 Porsche Cayenne is vastly superior to a $36,000 VW Touareg, which is virtually the same car. We believe that $225 Pumas will make our feet feel better-and look cooler-than $20 no-names . . . and believing it makes it true.

Successful marketers don't talk about features or even benefits. Instead, they tell a story. A story we want to believe.

This is a book about doing what consumers demand-painting vivid pictures that they choose to believe. Every organization-from nonprofits to car companies, from political campaigns to wineglass blowers-must understand that the rules have changed (again). In an economy where the richest have an infinite number of choices (and no time to make them), every organization is a marketer and all marketing is about telling stories.

Marketers succeed when they tell us a story that fits our worldview, a story that we intuitively embrace and then share with our friends. Think of the Dyson vacuum cleaner or the iPod.

But beware: If your stories are inauthentic, you cross the line from fib to fraud. Marketers fail when they are selfish and scurrilous, when they abuse the tools of their trade and make the world worse. That's a lesson learned the hard way by telemarketers and Marlboro.

This is a powerful book for anyone who wants to create things people truly want as opposed to commodities that people merely need.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Advertising's fundamental theorem-that perception trumps reality-informs this dubious marketing primer. Journalist and marketing guru Godin, author of Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable, contends that, in an age when consumers are motivated by irrational wants instead of objective needs and "there is almost no connection between what is actually there and what we believe," presenting stolid factual information about a product is a losing strategy. Instead, marketers should tell "great stories" about their products that pander to consumers' self-regard and worldview. Examples include expensive wine glasses that purport to improve the taste of wine, despite scientific proof to the contrary; Baby Einstein videotapes that are "useless for babies but...satisfy a real desire for their parents"; and organic marketing schemes, which amount to "telling ourselves a complex lie about food, the environment and the safety of our families." Because consumers prefer fantasy to the truth, the marketer's duty is to be "authentic" rather than honest, to "live the lie, fully and completely" so that "all the details line up"-that is, to make their falsehoods convincing rather than transparent. Troubled by the cynicism of his own argument, Godin draws a line at deceptions that actually kill people, like marketing infant formula in the Third World, and elaborates a murky distinction between "fibs" that "make the thing itself more effective or enjoyable" and "frauds" that are "solely for the selfish benefit of the marketer." To illustrate his preferred approach to marketing, the author relates a grab bag of case studies, heavy on emotionally compelling pitches and seamless subliminal impressions. Readers will likely find the book's practical advice as rudderless as its ethical principles.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover (May 23, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591841003
• ISBN-13: 978-1591841005
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (112 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #74,002 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Seth Godin is the author of fourteen international bestsellers that have been translated into over 35 languages, and have changed the way people think about marketing and work. His Unleashing the Ideavirus was the most popular ebook ever published, and Purple Cow is the bestselling marketing book of the decade.

His book, Tribes, was a nationwide bestseller, appearing on the Amazon, New York Times, BusinessWeek and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. It's about the most powerful form of marketing--leadership--and how anyone can now become a leader, creating movements that matter.

His book Linchpin, and was the fastest selling book of his career. Linchpin challenges you to stand up, do work that matters and race to the top instead of the bottom. More than that, though, the book outlines a massive change in our economy, a fundamental shift in what it means to have a job.

Since Linchpin, Godin has published two more books, Poke the Box and We Are All Weird, through his Domino Project.

In addition to his writing and speaking, Seth is founder and CEO of Squidoo.com, a fast growing recommendation website. His blog (find it by typing "seth" into Google) is the most popular marketing blog in the world. Before his work as a writer and blogger, Godin was Vice President of Direct Marketing at Yahoo!, a job he got after selling them his pioneering 1990s online startup, Yoyodyne.

You can find every single possible detail that anyone could ever want to know at squidoo.com/seth.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not Bad - but Not Original, June 1, 2005

By 

Kim Moeller "Marketing Padawan - but the forc... (Denmark) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: All Marketers Are Liars: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World (Hardcover)

Godin writes: "This is a whole new way of doing business."

Well, if it is such Seth, then surely You aren't the first marketer to spot this. Therefore, Seth Godin shouldn't take credit for revealing some of the powers of storytelling in marketing.

Other authors were there long before him (e.g. Laurence Vincent, John Simmons, Steve Denning, Christopher Locke, Dave Snowden), who managed to go deeper and further. Mind you though that their individual approaches are very different.

Much of what Godin calls storytelling are simply elements of marketing strategy (already well know to marketers) presented here in a new wrapping called "storytelling". But just because you say so, that doesn't make it so!

Where he writes "You can't out-Amazon Amazon" and "Make your story stand out from the competition", he is simply describing the importance of positioning, and similarly it isn't 'Rocket Science' when he says "Cheap is not marketing". Rather it is leaning up against men like Michael Porter who have been discussing the inherent dangers of price competition for decades.

He does however practice what he preaches. He tells a story that his customers want to believe. It is a pleasant though that success can be achieved simply by telling cute little stories. It is however not as simple as this, which is why I suggest you explore other authors too (See above).

A point I fully agree on is that: "You must aggressively go to the edges and tell a story that only you could tell." However, I don't feel that Godin has followed his own gospel in this case. The story he tells in "All Marketers are Liars" has to a wide extent already been told by a number of other skilful authors.

He still gets 3 stars from me, because I welcome any additions to the body of knowledge available about storytelling in marketing. I believe it is a powerful tool, and it deserves wider recognition.

41 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Why is this guy so popular?, July 17, 2006

By 

Book Lover "H" (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: All Marketers Are Liars: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World (Hardcover)

I find Seth Godin's books incredibly lightweight. There is really nothing of any substance here. The usual series of marketing anecdotes, normally about quite niche products. I think the whole thing can be summed up in the old advertising cliche: sell the sizzle, not the steak. He's just given it a new word - essentially he's dressing up well-worn concepts in new clothes. The book is poorly organised and repetitive, and I think he succeeds simply because his books are so lightweight - they're easily digestible on a bus ride or plane trip, don't rely on any support for his theories so they're not easily challenged, and essentially say very little. The marketing equivalent of the airport novel.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Author makes a valid point ...but there are better books on the subject, July 5, 2005

By 

Rachel Simeone "Book Marketing Expert" (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: All Marketers Are Liars: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World (Hardcover)

In this book, Seth Godin discusses the practice of telling compelling, attention grabbing stories about a product and gives examples of products that use this approach and shows that this practice is a compelling ways to market a product. The story that is told is the "lie" that he references in his title most.

Telling stories about a product is a fairly common and accepted practice in most marketing department nowadays. If the idea that telling stories is new to you, than you might find this book an interesting read because throughout the book Godin gives examples of well known brands and their stories.

If you are a marketing professional, you will probably find that this book is a bit fluffy and had little new information in it. For a better book on telling stories, I would recommend The Secrets of Word of Mouth Marketing by George Silverman