Meatballs

I'm getting my copy this week.
In the meantime:

From Blogger John Moore on the Pitfalls of 'Meatball Marketing'

Remember those classic Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup commercials? You know, the ones where the guy’s chocolate bar falls into the woman’s peanut butter jar. He says, “Hey, you got your peanut butter in my chocolate.” She says, “No, you got your chocolate in my peanut butter.” They each taste the flavor combination and declare, “Delicious.” Then the commanding yet friendly voiceover closes the spot with, “Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Two great tastes that taste great together.” Classic stuff.

Well, in his newest marketing book, Meatball Sundae, Seth Godin updates this Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup commercial scenario with Old Marketing as one flavor and New Marketing as another flavor. However, unlike the chocolate and peanut butter combination, the haphazard combination of Old Marketing with New Marketing is a case where two marketing flavors DO NOT taste great together.

Seth says the flavor of Old Marketing is about “… interrupting masses of people with ads about average products.” New Marketing, according to Seth, has a flavor that “… treats every interaction, product, service and side-effect as a form of media.” (Promoting products and services using a marketing mix of television commercials, print ads and billboards is Old Marketing, while promoting products and services using nontraditional marketing methods that invite influential customers to spread the word is New Marketing.)

The problem is, as Seth sees it, Old Marketing-based companies are so anxious to embrace New Marketing ways that they end up with a Meatball Sundae—two great tastes that DO NOT taste great together.

Continue reading John Moore here.