Huh, how can anyone who buys stuff claim not to be affected by marketing? Marketing is not just about getting you to buy stuff you don’t want but also connecting interested buyers with products they want. If I develop a bike that is strong, light and cheap, presumably you want to know about this and you might be interested in buying one? What else is this if not marketing?

Can we all just accept that it’s a matter of semantics. What TJ understands the word “marketing” to mean is entirely different to what the rest of the free-thinking world understands it to mean. As a result everyone can keep arguing forever with the cast-iron belief that they are correct.

Simple question TJ. You mentioned washing up liquid. Scenario: you’ve run out of washing up liquid. The local shop has 3 brands, all green, all in similar shaped bottles, all smelling the same, all similar consistency, same quantity of product in each bottle, each proven to be no better or no worse than the other, and priced at £1.00, £2.00 and £2.50. Which one do you buy?

Which one do you buy?

The one with the intrinsic quality.
You’ll not get an answer as TJ has his point of view that will have to be defended to the death.
He has mentioned that he doesn’t actuallly know what is involved in marketing yet is immune to its activities. That in itself is quite incredible.

Ahh, but how would you know about the intrinsic quality? Peer-reviewed scientific study is about the only non-marketing way I can think of, but then how would you choose between Detergents Monthly and Journal Of Applied Surfactant Technology?

Ahh, but how would you know about the intrinsic quality?

You do understand the phenomenon that is TJ, don’t you? 😀

My question still stands though. I don’t see how it can be answered without proving to be the tiniest little bit susceptible to “marketing” on the one hand, or appearing to be a complete buffoon on the other.

If I develop a bike that is strong, light and cheap, presumably you want to know about this and you might be interested in buying one?

Nope – I have all the bikes I want and need. I very much doubt I will ever buy another and certainly never a new one

Flying ox – If you look I do qualify it with virtually almost etc. To be 100% immune is of course very difficult.

What TJ understands the word “marketing” to mean is entirely different to what the rest of the free-thinking world understands it to mean.

On a previous thread I asked for definitions and got such a broad range of views – from folk who think compulsory labelling and word of mouth is marketing to those who gave a much tighter definition. Oh – and most of the definitions were gobbledegook as well

I have had people claim Scotland is a brand, the NHS is a brand – if yo draw your definition that widely then of course everything becomes marketing but to most folk a definition drawn that widely is bobbins
some folk on here claim all the products qualities are decided by marketing 0- including the fact washing up liquid contains detergent

ah well – off to ride bikes in the rain. You faith in marketing is touching

TJ – why do you favour Alfine over derailleurs? Do you still have an io ID?

Maybe, but you specifically state that nothing the washing up liquid company’s marketing department does would influence your decision. I beg to differ. Which one would you buy?

Forgive me if someone has already said this, I haven’t read the whole thread, but isn’t the little orange turd supposed to be a flame?

Alistair – I don’t – the alfine has its qualities as do dérailleurs

the IOID was an insurance replacement – to replace my commuter. its qualities matched what I wanted for that purpose

🙂 of course, because mountain bike and mountain biking aren’t the product of some of the biggest cycle marketing campaigns ever! Without marketing, it would still be a few blokes clunking down a hill in cali somewhere woildn’t it?

some folk on here claim all the products qualities are decided by marketing

No one has claimed that.
Whether these products make it to market and into your sweaty little hands, however, is. 😉

Fair enough, but the principle is clear enough in that marketing is not a malicious endeavour. Whether these be bikes built in a shed, Chinese knock-offs, soft drinks manufacturers, hog roast stalls, safety razors, classifieds listings, coffee, supermarket’s own paracetamol, and so on, we are all part of the marketing process to some extent. Marketing is not about being prey to conniving brand managers and advertising agencies, but about how to tell someone about a product and how to get it to them. Just because we might choose not to buy a lot of stuff and we’re wary of the centrality of consumerism in our society, do not mean we do not engage in the marketing process. By definition we do if we buy stuff.

How did you learn about its qualities and what made you change to it? Did you pick it at random from all the other unmarked cardboard boxes?

.

the IOID was an insurance replacement – to replace my commuter. its qualities matched what I wanted for that purpose

Did the insurance company just send you an IOID, or did you choose it? Were there no other bikes on the planet with the same qualities, and if not, how did you know? If there were, why an IOID over the others?

I have consistently qualified it in that way as obviously 100% is very hard to achieve in any field

marketing has bugger all influence on me. You keep claiming it has influence on me – I know it does not. Some of us are not gullible fools, some of us can see thru the bullshit.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/more-clever-advertising-that-i-dont-understand/page/2#post-3890222

Why you folk who have never met me believe you can tell me how I behave and react to things show a huge arrogance. I know myself, I know how I act and react and I know marketing has bugger all influence on me.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/more-clever-advertising-that-i-dont-understand/page/2#post-3890356

Other qualities as well – but eh qualities that are intrinsic in the product not anything that is affected by marketing.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/more-clever-advertising-that-i-dont-understand/page/2#post-3890370

I have only got to Page 2 of 5 sI am sure it continued till that post [ you are going to trawl your own posts to find something and I wish you luck but it was clear what you were saying..you were free of marketting and we were arrogant and patronising to suggest you were not. You appear to accept our view that you are influenced though I am sure there is a special Ninja TJ argument move you will now pull to deny this

Had you qualified it as such we could have avoided most of this.
I shall leave you to claim I am being personal, misrepresenting your quotes, telling me you never said what i have quoted etc that and all the other usual stuff you do when you TJ an argument.

Just ignore him, chaps. This pathetic clinging to a point that is entirely untenable is just TJ trolling. It must be. The alternative is just too horrid a thought.

I am deeply interested in this little piece of marketing advice.
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/business-name-idea#post-3884450
Why is a simple, descriptive name important?
Crazy marketing skillz too.

Heh.

TJ – if washing up Brand A was £1.25, Brand B was £1.25 and Brand C £1.25, however Brand B was on a special offer – buy one, get one free, which would you buy?

Initially quite funny, now the most tedious thread ever.

Some of us are not gullible fools, some of us can see thru the bullshit.

you are not immune to branding though, brand awareness is reinforced by marketing activities.
just because you feel you are not gullible enough to be swayed by direct advertising and it’s spurious claims to whiter whites, firmer stools, limescale removal and a dandruff free existence doesn’t mean your choices of brands are not influenced by marketing.

davosaurusrex – Member
Initially quite funny, now the most tedious thread ever.

I could kill it right away if it wasn’t so damn funny.

Crazy marketing skillz too.

Don Simon, as he doesn’t even know about the 4Ps and clearly knows nothing about marketing he’ll miss your point entirely…

That point being he’s volunteered as a brand advocate about a product he likes, which he prefers to other brands (and like HtS, has provided, of his own free will the company with free advertising and saved them some marketing budget…)

I used to live with a guy like this ‘marketing is manipulative, cynical and I want nothing to do with it etc’ and yet he was the most enthusastic advocate of Dyson vacuum cleaners I’ve ever met ‘amazing, brilliant, nothing else beats them etc’ I left him to it in the end…

he was the most enthusastic advocate of Dyson vacuum cleaners I’ve ever met

No point in trying to reason with someone like that, Miele Cat & Dog is clearly the only ‘hoover’ to have.

Forgive me if someone has already said this, I haven’t read the whole thread, but isn’t the little orange turd supposed to be a flame?

This is my favourite post of the day so far. So innocently on topic and as it happens I thought it was a flame too.

The Southern Yeti – Member
No point in trying to reason with someone like that, Miele Cat & Dog is clearly the only ‘hoover’ to have.

I see what you did there, even if you didn’t mean to 😀

Depends what you think I did…

I know what you did, you just may not have meant to.

Please tell me, I’ve got my biro ready to take notes.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if it transpired that the people who understood the influence of marketing and thus could work around it were least affected by it, and those who claimed immunity to it by denying it influenced their purchases was by extension the most affected?

I beg to differ. Its perfectly possible to reduce its pernicious influence to a minimum by concentrating on need not want and matching the qualities you need with the qualities of the objects on offer.

I think this is where you miss the point – matching qualities you need to the qualities of products is MARKETING.

The marketing people understand what you need, and design or create a product to meet those needs.

A product doesn’t just magically appear without your needs being considered.

How do you know what something is before you have bought it?

So….. read the Marketing information on the Packaging then ?

And again, the way a product looks and feels is erm……. Marketing

Ah, Internet Marketing or Maybe another media, but either way…… Marketing [/B]

Well done, you’ve proved yourself wrong

Ie,

How not to be affected by marketing:

Buy a different brand of $item each time you shop. Note which you favour and which you don’t. Once you’ve tried them all, weigh up which gives the best results for the price.

How to be affected by marketing:

Believe you can ignore it. Choose “randomly.”

I’ve done this with some products I use regularly. Eg, comparing Tesco Value $blah to Tesco regular brand $blah to Heinz $blah, I might find that the two Tesco ones are indistinguishable, but the Heinz is nicer. So if I want ‘nice’ I buy Heinz, and if I want to save my pennies I know that there’s zero point in buying the regular Tesco product and can go straight to the Value ones. On reflection, I then decide that the taste difference is worth the price differential, so I buy the Heinz in future. Or not, as the case may be.

I’ve done this irrespective of name, label, brand snobbery etc. So I think that now, when I go and buy $blah, I’m genuinely unaffected by marketing; I’m making a conscious, informed purchase. Aren’t I?

Wouldn’t it be ironic if it transpired that the people who understood the influence of marketing and thus could work around it were least affected by it, and those who claimed immunity to it by denying it influenced their purchases was by extension the most affected?

Mainly correct IME.
The only way IMO to be immune to marketing is to have very high self-awareness, and total honesty about your motivations, weaknesses, need for status, belonging and the identity you wish to project about yourself.

Very difficult to achieve of course… possibly only Ghandi and the Dalai Lama come close!

However, I’m not sure that many people working in Marketing are self-aware enough to understand how marketing impacts on their own buying decisions.

IME those most vociferously ‘anti’ and insist they are immune are, by that very statement, lacking any of the required insight and self-awareness.

In fact, by refusing to study the principles of marketing, they remain ignorant to it and therefore less able to resist it. Best way IMO would be to study it, spend time with a few people in the industry, understand how it works, and then you will be more able to understand and avoid it…

I suspect the antis are driven by a fear of being manipulated. Which is fair enough, I hate people trying to manipulate me. But that fear won’t go away by denying its existence…

I’ve done this irrespective of name, label, brand snobbery etc. So I think that now, when I go and buy $blah, I’m genuinely unaffected by marketing; I’m making a conscious, informed purchase. Aren’t I?

Possibly.
Of course the very idea of thinking ‘I need some baked beans’, may be due to Heinz putting awareness of the product in the public’s mind in the first place

The price of the product is surely a massive part of the marketing thought process too, as evidenced by Tesco normal and Tesco value brand tasting the same. I’d argue that by buying the value beans, you’re affected by the decisions if the marketing team to aim their product at the budget shopper.

I admire TJ for sticking to his guns in the face of such compelling arguments. What confuses me is the willingness to argue against the effectiveness of marketing on one hand while openly embracing it with the other.
Why use the brand name for a sale here when the brand name is meaningless. Could the product not be sold using the intrinsic qualities?
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/raceface-turbine-chain-rings
Same with the wanted, wouldn’t you get a better and more accurate response simply listing the intrinsic qualities?
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/hope-bulb-rear-hub

Or is it a case that the brand is self defining and we know the intrinsic qualities simply by using the brand.
TJ, you use marketing techniques to buy and sell, yet claim to be able to withstand its allure.
Credibility is being lost by the second TJ.