Max Barry Quotes

mktg case study #13: mktg magazines
GIVE AWAY FREE CRAP (PREFERABLY ADVERTISER-SUPPLIED FREE CRAP). DOESN’T MATTER HOW WORTHLESS OR USELESS IT IS: SALES WILL RISE. STRANGE BUT TRUE.

“Your problem is that reality isn’t good enough for you.” she says levelly. “You need a fantasy.”

The first principle of marketing (okay, it’s not the first, but it doesn’t sound nearly as cool to say it’s the third) is this: Perception is reality. You see, a long time ago, some academic came up with the idea that reality doesn’t actually exist. Or at least, if it does, no one can agree what it is. Because of perception.
Perception is the filter through which we view the world, and most of the time it’s a handy thing to have: it generalizes the world so we can deduce that a man who wears an Armani suit is rich, or that a man who wears an Armani suit and keeps saying “Isn’t this some Armani suit” is a rich asshole. But perception is a faulty mechanism. Perception is unreliable and easily distracted, subject to a thousand miscues and misinformation…like marketing. If anyone found a way to actually distinguish perception from reality, the entire marketing industry would crumble into the sea overnight.

I’m very interested in what sort of car she’s driving because I think it will reveal some insight into her personality. After all, I don’t have a car at all, and that reveals plenty about me.

6 says, “Tina’s doing an arts degree.”
“Oh?” I say, as if the eyebrow ring, blond hair with a streak of black and oppressive eye makeup hadn’t tipped me off.
“Oh, let me guess,” Tina says. “He’s a marketer.”
“Hi,” I say.
…“I hope they pay you well for strangling the youth of this country with cultural conformity.”

Some people would break the rules to get things done and some wouldn't; it was simple as that. John didn't have much use for the latter.

Like every other department in Zephyr, Training Sales has an open floor plan, which means everyone works in a sprawling cubicle farm except the manager, who has an office with a glass internal wall, across which blinds are permanently drawn. Open-plan seating, it has been explained in company-wide memos, increases teamwork, and boosts productivity. Except in managers, that is, whose productivity tends to be boosted by—and the memos don’t say this, but the conclusion is inescapable—corner offices with excellent views.

The departments don’t report the problem because a good manager knows the only reason to call Senior Management, ever, is to deliver good news. People who ring Senior Management with problems do not have much of a future at Zephyr Holdings. Senior Management is not there to hold departmental hands. It is there to dispense stock options.

“You.” He stares at me for a second, then shakes his head. “You told me the truth.”
I don’t know what to say. “Yeah.”
“Scat,” he says, a pained expression on his face, “haven’t you learned anything?”

It was turning into a sly, anti–free market statement, and irony irritated him. There was no place for irony in marketing: it made people want to look for deeper meaning. There was no place in marketing for that, either.

“White coke?”
“It’s a trial product.”
“Wow, sounds cool. What does it taste like?”
“Coke,” 6 says.
“Well, yeah,” I say, “but how is it different to, say, Classic Coke?”
“It’s in a different can,” 6 says.
I wait, but 6 just looks at me. “What, that’s it?”
“No,” she says. “It will also cost twice as much.” She pours herself a Pepsi. “We’re after a more upmarket niche.”
“You really expect people to pay double for a white can?” I ask, astounded. “When it tastes exactly the same?”
6 aims a chiseled frown at me. “I didn’t say it tastes exactly the same. I said it is exactly the same.”

mktg case study #3: mktg shampoo
PICK A RANDOM CHEMICAL IN YOUR PRODUCT AND HEAVILY PROMOTE ITS PRESENCE. WHEN YOUR CUSTOMERS SEE “NOW WITH BENZOETHYLHYDRATES!” THEY WILL ASSUME THAT THIS IS A GOOD THING.

The Infrastructure Control manager is a short, muscular man with a dark beard. He is an oddity in Zephyr Holdings: a person who started on the floor and was promoted through hard work. This makes other managers uncomfortable. The idea that you can get ahead through sheer competence, and not politicking, backstabbing, fleeing impending disasters, and clambering on board imminent successes, undermines everything they know.

To get a good job in marketing, you need to market yourself.

I note that as in all large corporations that loudly subscribe to equal opportunity and employment based solely on skill, the receptionist is young, female and gorgeous.