| Author | Message | ||
     Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-wK6AUyZiA Mind you, he's no longer the MD. Rumour has it this was why. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
I wonder if I'm on a different wavelength here (to you, Ramsey, and to the people who've posted comments on YouTube about this)? Now bear in mind that I teach business management, with marketing as one of my minor specialisms (I'm really into organisational psychology - but we won't talk about that!). I think the guy's talking absolute sense here! There certainly has been a change in marketing strategy and terminology in the last 15 years or so. Before, it was all about persuading people to buy - "you really need our product", "look what this could do for you", etc. Now, organisations talk about a concept they call customer relationship marketing - treating the customer like an individual, finding out their needs and wants, etc. Isn't that what this guy is talking about here? So, from my business academic perspective, I can't see why anyone would think this was a spoof or why his agency would take issue with him for saying these things (unless they don't want the public to know how marketers think!). Of course, the reality is still that organisations are trying to sell us something - it's just that they are trying to do it in a much more subtle way than before! And this is where my organisational psychology comes in too (it's a more gentle form of brainwashing than they used previously!). Hmmmm, I wonder if I'll get a backlash from these thoughts here ... | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.126 |
There's some content in there, but he's graduated from the Sarah Palin School of articulation. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
Whenever I think of marketing I think of Bill Hicks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Well I know what you're talking about, Caroline. When I get home I'll listen to the clip and let you know what I think... | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.163.6.13 |
Ha Chris- I was thinking of that Bill Hicks clip as well | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
>>Well I know what you're talking about, Caroline.<< That's unusual, Joel - most people don't understand me at all!  Going to listen to the Bill Hicks clip later. Hey, you folks might be giving me something to work into my teaching sessions! | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.227.177 |
I'm really into organisational psychology Carolinec, does that take its cue from social psychology? The latter, I've found, is an endlessly fascinating subject . . . | ||
| Niki Flynn (Niki) Username: Niki Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.32.69.29 |
Bill Hicks does that thing that so many comedians do that really irritates me: Clever talk - clever talk - really funny thought and then no pause for breath before a big UMMMMMMMMM (over the laughter because I'm pretending I don't realise how uber-clever that last thought was and I want you to think I was just chatting casually like I always do, completely oblivious to my comic genius), blah blah blah... Sorry, but that always bugs me. And I think Protodroid nails the point of why it's a spoof-ish clip. I kept waiting for the interviewer to say, "OK, OK, hang on a second, calm down, breathe, take your meds..." Lordy. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
>>I'm really into organisational psychology Carolinec, does that take its cue from social psychology? The latter, I've found, is an endlessly fascinating subject . . .<< Yes, it does, Hubert - or the bits I'm into do anyway. Leadership and power, interpersonal communication, motivation, managing change and so on - those are the kinds of things I teach. My thesis was on leadership and communication. Right, going to listen to that Bill Hicks clip now - but he does look a bit of a prat ... | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.163.6.13 |
This is a particularly blatant Hicks clip- and its funny because he clearly is being blatant and sort of merciless because sometimes things in marketing are blatant and merciless. In my opinion he was one of the very greatest stand -up artists- on the level with Pryor etc. His thoughts on creativity, power, racism, dim witted ideologies and narrow minded thinking etc are some of the most eloquent and bright and sharp- and when he descends to stuff like the clip above, it becomes even more funny therefore. He is dearly missed and died much too young. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Bill Hicks - ahh, right! I thought he was some marketing bloke - but he's supposed to be a comedian, eh? It's a clever piece though, except he does what I hate in stand-up comics which is make every other word a swear word. But why do marketing people get such a bad press and have a bad image in the public eye? After all, we're all (well, probably mostly all) marketers here on this board. When you write a story and submit it to an editor or publisher with a cover letter, you're marketing your work and saying to the editor/publisher "buy my story". When you write a book and try to get people to buy it, you're marketing your book. The "packaging" of the book - the cover image used, the cover blurb, etc - is all part of marketing, ie. trying to get your target market (audience) to buy/read your book. Now surely no-one here would say that's a wrong thing to do? If you want your things to be read, you _have_ to market them. I guess it's the _bad_ marketers - the socially irresponsible ones who sell us gas-guzzling cars, or sell dodgy baby milk powder to mums in developing countries - who give the whole marketing concept a bad name. But I honestly don't believe that marketing is a bad thing in itself. OK, now I'm probably going to get lynched ...  | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
It seems to me the whole point of a conversation (as opposed to a lecture) is that those taking part be open to the flow of ideas coming at them while stating their own. This has to involve openness to being surprised by information one didn't know or opinions one hadn't thought of that can then be assimilated to one's own stance or argued against. A marketer is always coming at you with his/her mind made up (by those above them) that their product is 'the best' and is therefore incapable of having a true conversation i.e. being open to the possibility they may be persuaded to say "you know what, you're right, this product really does suck!". Is this not true? | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
Swine flu by any chance Joel? If so you and me both... Dying here!  | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 98.220.186.44 |
I used to have a photo cut from a magazine tacked to my office wall. It had two images, side by side: one, an image of a cubist painting by Pablo Picasso, beneath which was the legend "BEFORE MARKETING," and two, an image of Mickey Mouse with the legend "AFTER MARKETING." Joel's "stormtroopers" (a good term; I work in publishing, too) have a reputation for taking something unique, odd, and beautiful and sanitizing it for the masses. (If they give it to the masses at all.) Perhaps this is one reason for Hicks's rant. I think back to the 70s, my childhood: Pet Rocks or Mood Rings could never have survived a marketing study. Tiny Tim would never have gotten on the Tonight Show. All in the Family or the Mary Tyler Moore show would never have aired. Tom Waits, Beefheart, the Stooges -- none of them would have had record deals. Marketing may not be the scourge of society that Hicks says it is, but I for one prefer a little weirdness in my life. These days you can only find that kind of weirdness on the Internet, with free-market sites like YouTube and MySpace, etc -- places marketers can't (yet) touch. If you want some info on why marketing studies are bunk and are harming our culture, try BLINK by Malcolm Gladwell. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
Maybe I'm confusing marketers with advertisers? Either way they're all in league with the Horn-ed One in my humble opinion... | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
'When you write a story and submit it to an editor or publisher with a cover letter, you're marketing your work and saying to the editor/publisher "buy my story". When you write a book and try to get people to buy it, you're marketing your book.' Of course, but forgive me, that isn't really the point. The question is whether you change the text in order to make it more marketable rather than try to write as truthfully as possible. I don't believe in changing the text in that way, which is why (for instance) I initially found The Face That Must Die so hard to sell. No, let me be more honest - I became so dispirited that I actually deleted a chapter because I thought it made one character even less sympathetic - made the book less "marketable", in other words - and that's the version that originally appeared in British paperback. Later I restored the chapter, and that's the text that has always been published since. 'The "packaging" of the book - the cover image used, the cover blurb, etc - is all part of marketing, ie. trying to get your target market (audience) to buy/read your book.' May I offer this as a riposte? http://news.ansible.co.uk/a265.html Read the paragraph about Justine Larbalestier. It may not say it all, but it certainly says far too much that's true of marketing. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
A passing thought about marketing that others may want to take up: there is now a generic look - used by several publishers - to the cover of an "abused childhood" autobiography. I'm not sure if David Pelzer was the first to be given this look, but there are dozens of books of this nature now on the shelves that look exactly the same as his, down to the typefaces used on the covers. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
Another thing that saddens me when browsing the horror shelves in Waterstones these days is how bland the covers of horror reprints are now. Everyone from Stephen King to Clive Barker are being reissued in plain unimaginative covers that all have the same "can't be bothered" look about them. I'm a bit of a sucker for the well illustrated, imaginative horror covers you used to get in the 70s & 80s. Everything seems to have become so homogenised and sterile now... or is it just me? If I'm gonna fall prey to advertising at least they could put some effort into it. | ||
| Niki Flynn (Niki) Username: Niki Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.32.69.29 |
Say what you will about skulls, blood, daggers and bleeding daggers shoved through skulls, but the very first RC book I ever bought was this one, because something about the not-really-all-that-innocent little girl in flames piqued my curiosity:  | ||
| Niki Flynn (Niki) Username: Niki Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.32.69.29 |
"Nerve-curdling" has to be one of the very best turns of phrase EVER! | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.195.68 |
It's the subtlety of this one I like. You can just sense the barest hint in the character's eyes that something may be wrong. http://www.robertmccammon.com/images/other_terror_brit_pb.jpg | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
Exactly the type of thing I mean...  | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Oh good, we've changed topic slightly. I could see I was a lone voice in the wilderness trying to explain that not ALL marketers are baddies! Now when it comes to books, that's a different issue. I'm definitely with you, Ramsey, and the rest of you, on the fact that a book shouldn't be changed to make it more marketable. That's why I love the small presses so much. Mainstream publishers have a completely different idea about what the book buying public want (hence, the state of Waterstones' horror shelves), but the small presses cater for those of us who prefer something a little different, less sterile, less homogenised. I'm definitely not arguing against that train of thought at all. And, yes, covers in the mainstream get "sanitised", made more politically-correct, and so on. Which, again, I disagree with. I think maybe what I'm calling "marketing" and what some of you folks are calling "marketing" is a different thing? What I'm talking about is how someone gets people to buy their goods or services, not how things nowadays are censored or homogenised (is that the right word? I mean "made the same or similar") in the way that the big companies (in this case, mainstream publishers) think is "good for us". Am I making any sense? Anyway, just ignore me if I'm not! | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
So in effect marketers are the enforcers of the new moral majority... a thought that makes me shudder and think despairingly of such artistic stiflers of expression as the old Hays Code in cinema. Surely, as then, we need some balance here. Oh for a return to the horror marketing attitude of the 70s... "if it offends them we must be doing our jobs right". | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
Maybe that should read "stiflers of artistic expression" lol.  | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
>>So in effect marketers are the enforcers of the new moral majority...<< No, but mainstream publishers are - or consider themselves to be. I think where I've got confused (and got everyone else confused!) is that I was looking at the video clip Ramsey posted as a comment on _marketing_ whereas I now think he probably meant it as a comment on _publishing_. Mainstream publishers are way behind many other organisations in terms of using this thing I referred to as customer relationship marketing, ie. finding out what the customer wants and giving them this. Or are they? Thinking about it, are those of us here on this board in the minority? I mean we all agree that we'd rather read something more unusual, more off-the-wall, not in the mainstream - not the sanitised stuff the big publishers want us to read. But are the _majority_ of horror readers happy with what's on the shelves in the big bookstores? I don't know. If they are, and if we are the minority who are catered for by the small presses, then in fact the big publishers have got it right in catering for _their_ market, and the small press publishers have got it right in catering for the smaller market which includes those of us here. Just a thought anyway ... * scarpers, before the lynch mob arrives * | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
BTW how do you do italics or bold on this board? It just won't work for me, so I've taken to doing _this_. I guess it might be my Firefox browser (it usually is when I find my computer won't do something which others can). | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.226.212 |
This LET THE RIGHT ONE IN-ish (imho) ad is supposedly "scaring people" all over Sweden.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4R1JMXFAg4 ... but I think the reports of the model's "scariness" and the ad's overall creepiness is - the more brilliant ad. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.177.118.49 |
BTW how do you do italics or bold on this board? Caroline - you just need to do backslash, then i, then open squiggly brackets - type whatever you want to be in italics, then closed squiggly brackets. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.8.225 |
A simple diagram: \ + i + { + italics + } = \ i { italics } = italics | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Thanks, chaps - that looks a bit complex! I was just trying to highlight it and then click the "i" button above. Let me try it: italics Wey-hey! It works! | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
That's something I've been trying to get to grips with too Caroline. Let's see... italics, bold, underline... | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
I wonder... will it work? | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
I love it when a plan comes together... | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.225.38 |
Now to put a picture up from your desktop, you just \ + image + { + nametheobject + } When you submit it, you get an image prompt (YOUR IMAGE HERE). Click "Post this Message," and then it directs you to pick the image from your own computer - upload something pleasant and you end up with  | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
Right, I'm gonna try that, let's see... \ + image + { + nametheobject + } | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
 | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
Something's gone horribly wrong??? | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.132.170.85 |
'A passing thought about marketing that others may want to take up: there is now a generic look - used by several publishers - to the cover of an "abused childhood" autobiography. I'm not sure if David Pelzer was the first to be given this look, but there are dozens of books of this nature now on the shelves that look exactly the same as his, down to the typefaces used on the covers.' Yes! But at least it warns us about them. I dunno; what I hate is that genuine suffering becomes like a can of beans on a shelf, a commodity. Smiths calles this particular genre 'tragic life stories'. I haven't seen a book cover I liked since about the eighties. I miss good quality illustration on a book. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Stephen, your edlritch hamster filled me with a sense of cosmic Awwwww... | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Awwwww, that hamster is so cute! I hope he didn't choke on the carrot which is clearly far too big for him to deal with! | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Au contraire Caroline, the hamster looks like he could eat that carrot for breakfast. And is doing so. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
In fact, at first, I thought it was a finger the hamster was eating! Flesh-eating hamsters - hmmmm, there must be a horror story there somewhere ... | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.72.14.113 |
Well we've had giant flesh-eating rabbits so why not hamsters? They do have a nasty bite you know! {name that film} | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Oh heck, what is the name of that film with the giant flesh-eating rabbits? I know the one you mean - it's got hilarious special effects in it when you see these rabbits thundering along. What is it called now? BTW do you think we'd better let Ramsey have this thread back for talking about marketing/publishers now? Otherwise he's going to be very angry with us ... | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
Night of the Lepus (1972) directed by William F Claxton from the novel The Year of the Angry Rabbit by Russell Braddon | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
For those of you who don't remember it this may help:  | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
>>Night of the Lepus (1972) directed by William F Claxton from the novel The Year of the Angry Rabbit by Russell Braddon<< Yes, that's the one - thanks, John! It popped into my head too, as I was cooking tea. Except I was thinking Night of the Lupus - which isn't quite right.  | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
Thing is I caught that movie on late night telly in my early teens and distinctly remember sitting goggle-eyed with my mouth hanging open throughout. At that time it was the single weirdest thing I had ever seen and when I tried describing it to a few mates who hadn't seen it they refused to believe me - insisted I was making it up (I think I finally lost them when I mentioned Dr McCoy was in it). After a while I started to wonder if I hadn't dreamt it myself. I've been in love with weird cinema ever since lol. |