Do you know anyone not in marketing? They think marketing is just spin, right? And pretty colours. But mostly spin. Or, as they call it nowadays, fake news. Now, I'm not equating marketing putting something forward in its best light as connected in any way to disinfectant advice, 5G nonsense and the like, but there is always a (healthy) suspicion that we don't always, maybe, say everything. For example, one of my favourite adverts is the B2B Volvo ad with Jean-Claude van Damme.
A great video, though arguably not a common "user journey" for truck drivers. My son, who is an ops manager at a trucking company says it's not often his drivers need to treat a celebrity actor as a chicken wishbone.
But is it real? Volvo said when the video went viral (97 million views and rising): "The stunt is real and is performed in just one take. It’s a daring stunt but we had full control. Van Damme was actually connected to safety lines that you can't see in the video. Small platforms on the trucks' side mirrors also propped up Van Damme's feet."
But it is genuinely amazing how often the best way to make a point is not to take a real situation but take the point you are making and extrapolate it it to ludicrous effect. Take another great advert (this one's rather old so the picture quality is not great), the famous German coastguard advert.
Indeed, I do teach my marketing colleagues, try to make your product - no matter how mundane - a life-or-death choice! Find a situation where your product is the hero that saves the day.
For years popular films - currently now Netflixing (16 million viewers added in March per the FT) rather than cinemaing - and for even longer, books, have exploited this abandon with the need to be real: there's even a name for it, "suspension of disbelief". Often we can suspend disbelief in huge dollops, as long as the dialogue and minor details are correct. So to all my marketing friends and readers, here it how far it gets pushed daily, compiled over many years, my:
20 Gross Delusions you have to Ignore to Enjoy Movies.