Bill Gates hired a guy from the perfume business to head up his marketing back when his fledgling company was called "Micro-Soft" and company-wide meetings could be held in four corner tables of an also fledgling company called Starbucks.
When you know him as well as I do, you called him "Billy" and ol' Billy Gates isn't worth more than the Gross Domestic Product of Portugal because he was rejected as an extra from the film "Sling Blade". He picked a guy from the perfume business because this person understood the psychology of why people want to buy things. And that is the primary reason a company succeeds.
Now for something essentially unrelated:
What was called "New Media" only a couple of years ago is now largely being called Social Media. Similar to the blind rush of creating a business website 15 years ago, companies have thrown money and people at Social Media marketing without the slightest idea on what to expect from it or why anyone with more than 11 brain cells would have any interest it.
An auto parts retailer I drove by today suggested I should "Like" them on Facebook. Really? A furniture company tells me it's a good idea to "follow them on Twitter". I would rather follow The Bugs Bunny Coyote off a cliff. Can someone explain to me why I want to read the inane marketing drivel from a chain sandwich shop or a shipping company in the little free time I have?
The Land of Opportunity also happens to be The Land of Are We Really That Stupid?
To paraphrase the brilliant,deceased Mark Twain, "you can keep your yapper closed and let a few people think you're not with the program or you can open your piehole and remove all doubt".
Mark Twain insists you DON'T follow him on TwainTwit.
