DICING WITH THE DEVIL
It all began for me in the Etap Hotel in Istanbul hundreds of years ago. My first workshop. I sat at a table next to a weathered old veteran called Brian Heap, who was representing some school in Bournemouth. The odd thing was that while my table groaned with piles of glossy brochures, his was completely empty, apart from one, sellotaped firmly to the table. As we approached lunch on the first day, I leant over and asked him what he was up to. He told me that in time I would understand. The next day he did not even turn up to his table.
I met him again on the plane home a few days later - I was exhausted and had lost my voice and he looked as fresh as a daisy. I had to know more. After a few moments, he asked me how many students I had enrolled on Regent courses. I replied: “About twenty.” That was a hopeful exaggeration, by the way. He said he had bagged four groups of juniors and several adults. I was intrigued. How had he managed this? His reply: “I took the agent running the workshop and his whole team out for an expensive dinner on both workshop nights. Best restaurant in town. Cost me a small fortune, but it did the trick and kept them away from the competition.”
(Left - two flash cards from a set sold in China to English students. Clearly, the printer had had a few issues. The irony was that the sets sold out to English teachers incredibly quickly for all the wrong reasons)
It was at that moment that I realised that marketing to agents was a little more complicated than I first thought. The world is full of busy fools, a seventeenth century poet once wrote, or something like that anyway, and our industry is a perfect example of that. Since the early days of street-pounding in Tokyo, Rio and Moscow, English school marketing people have sought to bag as many agents as possible to sell their courses. We’ve employed traditional marketing methods concentrating on quality, magnificent host families, great locations and an incredible range of English courses.
We’ve then had to change our approach to be unique to agents. We’ve had to. After all, everyone ends up saying the same. We’ve gone on sales courses to find out about how to sell better to the X,Y, Z and Hashtag generations. We’ve been told to motivate not manipulate, to give value, be interesting, be human, be focused… even be polite, for heaven’s sake. We’ve been told the value of vulnerability, not to lie or exaggerate, to make it personal, to tell stories about our stuff. It’s no longer a sale apparently, it’s a relationship.
And now we’ve moved into the era of postmodernist marketing, which basically means that doing risky and dangerous things is now OK.
(Left - the front cover of a brochure produced by the London School of English, which tried to be 'different' and caused a great deal of fuss when it came out)
SO WHAT IS ANTI-MARKETING?
A few half-truths
Anti-marketing can be defined in a quite a few ways. For the purposes of this essay, I see postmodern marketing as the same as anti-marketing, which is a dangerous leap to make, I know. But needs must where the devil drives, as they say.
First, it should be remembered that there is another interpretation of anti-marketing - an altogether more political one, which involves controversial, restrictive,international trade agreements between the richest countries of the world ... and demonstrators, who go out in the streets waving protest banners at the unfairness of it all and then being tear-gassed by zealous policemen. This is not what this site is all about - not that I have any moral problems with these anti-marketeers. They definitely have a point.
No, this is a site about another sort of anti-marketing - the type that is generally frowned upon or laughed at by serious marketing people, who still believe that the 4 'P's have relevance.
It is the sort of marketing which knows no boundaries, has no real rules and uses chaos and unpredictability as its foundation stones.
So, let's have a quick runaround of what is perceived as the main supporting pillars of theoretical anti-marketing or postmodernist marketing, as some like to call it.
(photo shows a placard in Berlin proclaiming that 'everything imaginable is real' - one of the underlying tenets of postmodern marketing)
It is at this point that I should introduce you to Professor Stephen Brown of the University of Ulster - the acclaimed anti-Christ of marketing. Prof. Brown first opened my eyes to the universe of anti-marketing - a place where Quantum, Anti-Matter and Ten Commandment marketing all have their place - well, certainly in his novels. And, if you can get your hands on his first book - 'The Marketing Code', then read it and then read it again. Put it down, have a stiff drink and then read it a third time. It is that good, not just as a parody / pastiche of Dan Brown's Da Vinci effort, but also as a subliminal postmodern marketing textbook.
He has also written a surprisingly addictive textbook called rather drily, Postmodern Marketing, along with several other best sellers on how we all market and sell to one another. All great reads, because Prof. Brown has the knack of eking out the humour even when discussing the really serious, technical stuff.
Finally, and this is the bit I really like, he has also explored 'dark' marketing and even graded it - a task akin to having a top ten of the worst orcs in Mordor. Professor Brown is indeed a tour-de-force in anti and postmodern marketing.
(Photo of a placard in London - great example of anti-marketing. Humour meets politics meets political correctness - all to sell a sandwich)
Anyway, let's now look at what the theorists say postmodern or anti-marketing is all about. I should quickly say that this section is probably more for those of you going through the pains of a marketing qualification of some sort. For everyone else, sit back, enjoy the big words and marvel how experts have made the whole thing sound like a complicated science.
Plurivalence: you need to have had several drinks to understand this one. It is probably best to summarise it by saying that there are no rules. Just do anything you like. Like chucking a tin of magnolia at a canvas and calling it art. Have a bit of fun. Or like the famous black and white Guinness ad campaign with surfers in a rough sea with loads of white horses and a drumbeat in the background.
Retrospection: this is pretty much anything which digs up the past. The retro look or Chronology, as it is sometimes called. Like the revamped Mini car of the 21st century, but still with shades of 'The Italian Job'. Or the Hovis ad with a bloke in some northern town pushing a bike up a steep hill in the good old days to deliver bread.
Self-Referentiality: this is an easy one. It's when you refer to yourself as an example. For example, in the film, 'Jurassic Park', there is a copy of the book of the making of the film in the souvenir shop. The film also actually advertises its own merchandise in this shop, just prior to the place being flattened by a tyrannosaurus. You don't get more self-referential than that.
Juxtaposition: this is when marketing campaigns and ads put opposites together which probably shouldn't work - generally time-lines and places. It becomes a mish-mash of images like a Roman soldier eating an ice-cream, a black guy sitting on a horse at the end of anti-perspirant ad or a television screen perched on a urinal so you don't miss a thing and can be advertised to even when relieving yourself (the photo was taken in a downtown cafe in Tokyo).
Hyper-reality: Strangely, I feel most at home with this aspect of postmodern marketing. Put crudely, it's when fantasy and unreality intrude into the real world. Like visiting Disneyworld, Las Vegas or Stevenage. Reality takes a back seat and we indulge ourselves in our wildest dreams or nightmares. Just watch the original 'Blade Runner' or play the game: 'Pokemon Go' (the photo shows a 'Glalie' from the game, balanced on someone's finger in a London side-street). In a way, this can be seen as the future of marketing, whether we like it or not. The theorist, Baudrillard, says that we take ‘maps’ of reality television and film as more real than our actual lives. Certainly, the makers of the interactive game, 'Pokemon Go', would agree with this, having grossed nearly two billion dollars in the first two years since the game's creation.
Just take a look at this short film by Keiichi Matsuda and you'll see what it's all about.
https://vimeo.com/166807261
There are a few more categories which are lumped into postmodern or anti-marketing. Just get a copy of the massive tome 'Consumer Behaviour', written by a selection of professors, as powerful in their way, as Marvel's Justice League. Surprisingly, postmodern marketing takes up just half a page in this encyclopaedia of marketing knowledge, although most modern marketing is not just tinged with aspects of postmodern or anti-marketing, but is actually built on it.
So... we are introduced to:
Fragmentation: the multiplying of products in an almost amoebic nightmare. Just more and more stuff which we appear to be drowning in.
De-Differentiation: this is what is known as a blurring of high and low culture. Like having an opera singer on a comparison TV ad. Or the famous bit from 'The Nutcracker' as background music to Cadbury's fruit and nut.
Pastiche: just read Stephen Brown's 'The Marketing Code' or the follow up, 'Agents and Demons'. Pastiche of the original in a cuttingly funny way..
Parody: this is also linked strongly to reverse-psychology marketing. Like the Marmite campaign, where they admit people hate their product and generally have a bit of a laugh at this.
Anti-Foundationalism: this is an outright anti-marketing campaign where you deliberately do or say the wrong thing to have shock value. Look at the Benetton baby posters or the FCUK campaigns. Shock, horror letters to The Times and huge cheap, free, extra exposure.
