Ted Talks are the best way to learn about the important things. They are educational, well thought out, and always interesting. Here are a few of the best Marketing Ted Talks to watch to improve your marketing skills.
Marketing Ted Talks with Seth Godin with The Tribes we Lead
The Blah Blah: Seth Godin talks about how mass media was a fail, but tribes are the growing thing. Mass marketing means average ideas. It’s when companies are trying to ‘hypnotise’ people into buying, voting, ect. He brings in tribes as a form that is taking down mass marketing. He says these tribes are about leading and connecting people and ideas. The internet, now a days, allows different interests/ hobbies to have their own tribe, or group. These are groups of people who have the same interests or hobbies and can form their own community from anywhere in the world.
The Moral: Godin believes that the new form of marketing is for companies to build their own tribe and be the ‘king’ of it, and to “find the true believers.” He says, “You don’t need everyone, you just need a thousand.”
Marketing Ted Talks: Seth Godin with How to Get Your Ideas to Spread
The Blah Blah: Seth Godin is clearly the one to listen to about marketing, he makes it simple to understand. Starting off by talking about sliced bread, for fifteen years after being ‘invented’ people still were not buying it. He goes into talking about how to get ideas to spread, not just getting the idea. Seth then uses an example of an image of a cow, a normal, black and white cow is not exciting. It’s the day to day thing, and won’t grab attention. But, he then edits the photo to make the cow black and purple. This is not exciting. He mentions that the things that are not normal are going to grab attention. However, if they stay like that, they will slowly become another normal that doesn’t grab attention.
The Moral: You need to advertise in an unconventional way. This is what will get your company sales. To keep this going, you need to change up your advertisements every so often.
Rory Sutherland with Life Lessons From an Ad Man
The Blah Blah: In this Ted Talk, Rory Sutherland talks about how advertising is more about the approach you take than the product itself. My favorite example from this was the potato. He brings up how potatoes look gross and that made people not want to eat them. He then went into the potato being rebranding. It was told to be a food of royalty, and how it was guarded while in a regular potato patch. This made it more desirable, and the potato became more wanted.
The Moral: Desirability is the reason people do anything. Why can’t people live without your product or service? Sell that!
Andrew Stanton with The Clues to A Great Story
The Blah Blah: Andrew Stanton talks about storytelling and how it impacts your advertising. He says “storytelling is joke telling” and that you need to know your punchline. Stories allow us to connect to people or things. It’s stories that can get us to relate to a company or product, which results in follows and customers. Then he goes on to talk about Mr. Rodgers and how he carried the quote, “There is no one you cannot learn to love once you’ve heard their story.”
The Moral: A company or product should make people care, in some way. Stories pull us in, make us care, and cause us to buy.
Dan Pink with The Puzzle of Motivation
The Blah Blah: Dan Pink opens his Ted Talk with the candle problem. He asks how you can attach a candle to a wall, without the wax cannot drip onto the table. He goes through a few possible ‘solutions’ and then says they are wrong. The actual solution is to use the container the tacks were in, connect that to the wall and put the candle in the container. When it comes to motivation, your viewers (the candle) want a solution (the wall). You are the container.
The Moral: Problems don’t always have an easy fix, even if they might, you want to show them YOU are the way to the solution. If you show your viewers that you can lead them to a solution, they will be more likely to buy your product. You have given them motivation.
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