Dear Marketers...Do Your Job.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=s5mqPPW0hY0 There is a quote by C.S. Lewis that goes a little something like this: Don’t say it was delightful; make us say delightful when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, “Please will you do the job for me.”

I dare say the same is true of marketing. As marketers we do a lot of talking and thinking about how to engage people in talking about, sharing and loving our brands. Asking people to do all of those things, rather than inspiring them to do so, is a lot like asking them to do your job for you. Sometimes I think we forget that our job isn’t just making “pretty trash” (as Greg Cordell has been known to call it), our job is to make people care and fall in love.

In the instant we cease to dwell on selling a service or pushing a product and chose to refocus our energies on creating a remarkable moment or simply bringing a little extra dose of joy into the world, we cease to be “marketers” and start living up to our potential as the magic makers and pixie dusters we really are.