Been working on a new project called periodt. for the last few weeks.
The idea is to let startups offload their marketing work.
Would deeply appreciate any support you could give! A review for example if you’ve ever gotten value from my past work.
It’s live right now:
Levels posted this recently:
Naturally… I had some thoughts.
So here’s my counter:
Everyone hates advertising until they lose their cat.
Also, I think it's unfair to equate marketing to promotion.
Why aren't positioning, building an audience, researching market needs, educating your prospects, and so on, suddenly not considered marketing???
The marketing defense
There are many ways to define 'marketer' but if we view it as a bridge between 'what the market desires' and 'what the company can produce' then how exactly is that a bad thing???
The advertising defense
Many platforms (YouTube inc.) have tested paid tiers vs. free + ad tiers.
The market clearly shows they're okay with the trade-off of free + ads. Even when the price is <$10.
Would it be better if you could have everything you wanted, always, for $0?
Sure... I guess. But how is that realistic? Companies need to 'eat' too.
If consumers had such an issue with ads, we'd see a much higher % of them paying for ad-free plans on platforms.
Lastly, advertising is like a knife. It can be used to stab someone or to perform surgery.
Advertising can help brands get encoded into consumers' memory networks.
At a conscious and subconscious level, memory structures can be associated with that brand.
When those associations are called upon, they help the consumer navigate the overwhelming landscape of offerings.
The case for branding
Similar story here. So many options to pick from.
Branding helps consumers make a good-enough choice faster.
It also decreases risk cuz clearly, you're willing to put your rep on the line.
Also, many consumers derive more joy from wearing Nike socks vs. no-brand socks. (Or pick your category: cars/watches/computers/etc.)
Under communism brands were absent. As a result, less incentive for producers to innovate and improve the quality.
Also, cuz those things weren't there, the consumer had less info available.
All these things, advertising, branding, 'marketing,' can help elucidate information because they're signals.
E.g. without marketing, the hard job of positioning is left to the consumer/prospect.
My friend Professor Clark made a good point about the competitive landscape getting frozen.
The point I tried to convey here is that when you’re creating a system where you’re artificially keeping it from the Nash equilibrium, it’s delicate like a marble balanced on the rim of a teacup.
Nash equilibrium describes the state of a system where no agent can improve its outcome unilaterally while the others keep their strategies unchanged. I.e. if everyone acts in their own best interests and assumes others won’t change their strategy.
E.g. if no one uses doping, the 1 athlete that does has a huge advantage assuming no one else changes their strategy.
Of course what’ll happen is that everyone starts using doping and now you’ve got an interesting situation (Nash equilibrium) where everyone acting in their own best interest yet somehow the collective is worse off.
Pareto efficiency is the state of a system where there’s no way to redistribute resources to make one person better off without making someone else worse off.
Think of the weight cutting (rapid dehydration) that fighters do before a fight to be able to fight at a significantly lower body weight. If no one does that, you’ve got Pareto efficiency. No one has an edge but also no one is suffering from the risks of dehydration; reduced performance, electrolyte imbalance, increased risk of injury, increased risk of brain damage, increased risk of organ damage, etc.
But as soon as one fighter does that (taking advantage of the instability in the system), everyone else is forced to follow suit. That creates a new system (settled into a Nash eq.) where no one has an advantage but everyone is worse off.
I created a ProductHunt account and upvoted https://www.producthunt.com/products/periodt/launches 👍 Good luck.