How Marketing Can Yield Better Results For Entrepreneurs

By Rex Showunmi

When I was a boy something happened in our neighbourhood one day that would make more sense later in adult life and influence my input into the world of Marketing.

We were playing football on the street when a young man passed by, he was a fair handsome man with a young baby face that revealed he was in his mid-twenties. As he approached the middle of the street he shouted in a very loud voice as he tore his shirt, screaming "Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!"

Then he turned silent, gazed around, moved his head like a bird at the sound of another's chirp. Later, a hard laugh as he turned round. A typical Southwestern Nigeria it was, and obviously the signal was received clear and sound. In street language, the guy is a tear-rubber mad man.

"Eeeyah...." one onlooker pitied as she probed with emotion : "who did this to this young man?"

The display of mentally disturbed people was a delight for kids in those days and adults too. So the audience increased, some peeping through their windows as others stood outside their buildings to watch the fresh display. And he did lived up to expectation. He chased the boys playing football and scratched his hair endlessly. Then later he walked towards one house, picked the bucket one of the residents was washing with while the owner took to her heels. It was a typical communal styled street, no fence, no gate and every compound did almost all the washing outside. The new man stood close to the centre of the street where he had dropped the bag he was carrying before the "change of mind" started. He reached for some dirty clothes inside it, dragged them out and started washing . Few minutes later he brought out one of the clothes to show the public like an Ariel advert. The cloth became very white and clean as we could observe the display only from afar. By that time he had started acting fine though many still doubted his sanity until five young ladies walked close to him dressed in a plain vest with packets of a locally made bar soap. Unknown to us,they were marketing people. But that man's display still filled us with skepticism. You mean he had been acting a drama all these while? Many who doubted gathered round him to confirm the real thing. We all wondered... how could this real thing be acted? But that was what it was: a make-believe.

Creditably, It was a drama that held the entire street hostage. The soap sold like magic that day. Obviously, it was a Saturday, a popular washing day for people so almost every house bought the magic soap. It enjoyed the right timing.

Interestingly, what happened that Saturday would continue to fill our gists in the area for a very long time. People reminisced and laughed. Trust kids, they acted the hell out of it. Even now, many decades after, it has survived many expensive adverts in the head of those who witnessed it.

And many years later, I would later understand better what a common man with little education had displayed years ago as the basic principles to improve Marketing studying Aristotle. Aristotle some 2300 years ago holds strongly the view that people are better convinced or motivated when they "consider a thing to have been demonstrated." Vyakarnam and Leppard in describing innovation also mentioned something close to Aristotle's views on demonstration or showing. They define Innovation as a "matter of asking people what they want and then making it." They added that creativity is the process which generates new and unusual ideas and these ideas must be converted into something with practical use. The "practical use" opinion coheres with Aristotle's view which is to serve the purpose of demonstration.

This principle that formed the fulcrum of my Post Graduate thesis remains the most outstanding principle that anyone thinking of succeeding in marketing a product, his career or his personality should follow. Truly, it looks simple but technical and we can trace it to the tremendous success of some of the biggest brands in the World from Apple to Twitter.

Showunmi Rex is available on twitter via @remirex

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