Marketing And The Left: A Strange Mix?
Raghav Kaushik Interviews Romi Mahajan
02 November, 2015
Countercurrents.org
On the left, there is a general disdain for the profession of marketing, for understandable reasons. Yet, even in a good society, marketing has a role to play. In this interview, we ask writer and activist Romi Mahajan, whose day-job is marketing, about the contradictions between his profession and his passion, and how the left ought to learn from the good aspects of marketing.
Q1: Marketing as a profession in a society driven by the profit motive inevitably leads to over-statement and even deception. As a classic example, if you want to sell a car, you don't just sell it on its own merits, but you hire a sexy model to trick people into buying the car. The above of course is not a criticism of the notion of marketing itself, but of its bastardization in a capitalist society. Even in a good society, one would want marketing to make people aware of what is out there. Talk about the fundamental purpose of marketing and what it would look like in a good society.
Romi Mahajan (RM): Marketing is indeed largely what you say it is; inscribed in the term itself – it’s about ‘creating’ a ‘market’ for a good, service, idea etc. In a profit-driven society, hyperbole, trickery, and imprecise language are necessary parts of marketing.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. The fact remains that people are moved to action—whatever the action is—not only by logic and science but by emotions and what “feels” right. Even from the perspective of doing good things, marketing techniques have to be employed. Examples of this abound too. As Cass Sunstein says, people often need a “nudge” even to do the right thing like taking their kids in for vaccinations or avoiding littering. Marketing is very much about those “nudges.” The “nudges” do require appeal to emotion but need not indulge in hyperbole or trickery.
Q2: You are a marketer in a capitalist society who is also a progressive. How do you reconcile your values with your profession as it is practiced today? Is there a space for "honest marketing" (I'm using the phrase based on the title of your book)?
RM: I’m indeed a marketer and I hope to call myself a progressive. Some of the “marketer in me” stems from the usual middle class venality – I wanted to be good at something and somehow I latched on to marketing. Some of it has to do with the fact that I believe I communicate fairly effectively and thus was naturally drawn to marketing as a means to conduct professional life but also as a way to make a large difference in politics and amongst friends and loved ones in making the case for progressivism and decency. So yes I think there can be ‘honest’ marketing but you can’t take yourself too seriously or you risk crossing the line.
Q3: For the reasons referred to in question 1, there is a general contempt or at least indifference to marketing in the left. Isn't that throwing the baby out with the bathwater? How has the lack of a "marketing mindset" hurt the left? Does it explain in part our ineffectiveness?
RM: The Left rightly sees marketing as a way to create, recreate, and support consumerism and other ills. In fact, governments and industries “market” wars. Some industries “market” poisons of all kinds. Most “market” things that despoil the environment. So yes, the profession deserves derision in that respect. But when you think about the powerful aspects of marketing, as they apply to good things, as they apply to getting people to act, as they apply to convincing people to do things beyond what is good for them, then marketing has a place. Most people respond to passionate communication and that is also the basis of good marketing. So the bathwater is dirty certainly but the baby is beautiful. Being technically correct but discussing it in a way that does not resonate with others isn’t always a useful political methodology. Most people respond to things to which they can relate and things that are expressed in a positive way. We too often worry about getting the facts right (which is necessary) but thinking that facts alone will get people to move is a mistake.
Q4: In contrast, talk us through how the right has used a "marketing mindset" to further its causes?
RM: Marketing creates uniformity of desire and vision and the Right is good at this. Mantras are powerful on the Right but they can be on the Left too. And the Right uses the tools of marketing well and we get caught up in infighting too often on the Left. Marketing however needn’t always be about robotic conformity but sometimes conformity of action helps. Look, when you’re crossing the Edmund Pettus bridge, it’s good to walk together at the same pace in the same direction with the same confidence level and the same strategic outcome desired. So if we have to “market” to get to that unity, then so be it.
Q5: Where do you feel that the progressive community can make the largest impact and how does marketing play a role? Can you give concrete examples of marketing campaigns you have found inspiring that the left can learn from?
RM: I think that all great Left movements have songs, slogans, principles, and alignments that could be called marketing. Recently, I see #BlackLivesMatter as a movement with excellent marketing – stay on message, use social media, have a ‘brand’ that people identify with and so on. That’s marketing!
From the mainstream, let me give you an example of simple but great marketing. The shoe company Zappos used to put their image on the TSA bin where you put your…shoes…before you go through XRay. Simple, yet powerful. Similarly I went to a pizza place once right after the USPS raised stamp prices by 2 cents. They were giving away 2 cent stamps because they understood that this would be a helpful gesture for their clientele. Please note that there is no hyperbole or trickery involved in either of these campaigns. Small things can go a long way in getting people to be happy and therefore to act.
Romi Mahajan is the founder of KKM Group a marketing firm, an author, an investor, and an activist. His career is a storied one, including spending 9 years at Microsoft and being the first CMO of Ascentium, an award-winning digital agency. Romi has also authored two books on marketing- the latest one can be found here . A prolific writer and speaker, Mahajan lives in Bellevue, WA, with his wife and two kids. Mahajan graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, at the age of 19. He can be reached at [email protected]
Raghav Kaushik is a software engineer working in Microsoft in Redmond WA, and is a member of the Communication Workers of America (CWA) Local 37083 union. He has a PhD from University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Bachelors degree from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Madras.