The Centre For Common Fucking Sense In Marketing


Advertising and marketing is filled with lots and lots of very smart, talented people, people who have good instincts and common sense. So why is it then that the bullshit-talkers and the purveyors of nonsense are in the ascendancy?

The answer is simple.
The bullshitters have the charts.

You know the scenario. You're in a meeting, you know full-well that something is going to work/isn't going to work/is true/isn't true, but someone will turn up with a deck of charts to prove themselves right and you wrong. And there you have it. The people with charts always win. The end. Even if it flies in the face of what is clearly common fucking sense. This is because everyone is shit scared of getting it wrong, or rather shit scared of being blamed for getting it wrong. So everyone hangs onto anything that looks like it proves something. Then they can blame that later if it all goes tits-up.

Over here in smug Sell! Towers we created our own little bubble, where common sense rules, and powerpoint is outlawed. However, we know that this isn't the case for everybody. So in an attempt to help redress the balance, we are fighting fire with with fire. We are creating a body of charts to illustrate common sense. We're sorry it has come to this. But here we are. Here. Anyway, now the smart people of advertising and marketing can fight the bullshitters and nonsense-talkers with their own charts. A chart-off, if you will. Published under the banner of The Centre For Common Fucking Sense In Marketing, or CoFSim for short (a stupid, nonsense-y name to confuse the bullshitters).

So here we present the first. Poliakov's Pyramid Of Engagement. A simple, yet convincing-looking chart to prove what our common-sense tells us. That people are more likely to spend time engaging with something that they're very interested in. Ergo, if you are marketing a product that isn't in the top interest zone, you better have a rip-snorting, son-of-a-bitch of an idea (or a big prize) if you want anyone to interact any further than a cursory glance. So now you can turn up at that meeting to discuss the lame user-generated-content campaign idea for the new scouring-pad client, armed with suitably complicated-looking ammunition to back-up your argument that everyone is taking crazy-pills if they think anyone is going to take-part.

**Oh you liked that did you? You can read more of this kind of thing by clicking here: More Sell! Sell! on Advertising

12 comments:

  1. I like the way it looks all old, and shit.

    Adds the whiff of credibility.

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  2. It's about time. Excellent. And so useful. I will frame it and worship it.

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  3. I love this. Thank you sell sell.

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  4. I might be being pedantic but it looks like the smart people of advertising have spelt their acronym wrong... It looks like you are the Centre of Fucking Sense in Marketing.

    Other than that I wholeheartedly agree with your cause.

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  5. Awesome; I will use this in a meeting tomorrow.

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  6. This post makes me want to come an work for you

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  7. Ah, common sense, my old friend. How you have been missed.

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  8. Thank you Sell Sell. I now have the material I was looking for to construct a robust argument against pretty much every idea currently coming out of the advertising organisation I work in. Can you fix the NHS next please?

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  9. Ta for the support kind readers. Anonymous person, nothing wrong with a bit of good old fashioned pedantry, but it's not meant to be an acronym, just a combination of the words to make something readable ('Co' from Common 'F' from Fucking, 'S'ense 'I'n 'M'arketing). We really need to get out more.

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  10. well Sell! Sell!..... you know what they say about common sense don't you??

    it's not so fucking common!!!

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  11. Hmmm, not bad. But you need a very long computer-generated report with lots and lots of meaningless stats too.

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  12. To give it credibility, have you run this past a focus group or done some quantitative assessment? If you’re going to present a chart you need validatation, even if just from your dog.

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