All Marketers Are Liars

Background

Godin said the inspiration came to him when he "watched the Democrats lose the [election in 2004]." He stated that although both candidates told lies, the candidate that won told the more believable lie.{{cite news

Description

All Marketers Are Liars uses examples from areas such as organic products, the Goodyear Blimp, and Cold Stone to illustrate the power of marketing an authentic story. From the book jacket:

Godin uses the idea that consumers will believe not whatever they want to believe but also what the marketers want them to believe. The idea that there is no concrete 'self-fulfilling truth' is expressed in the preface. "Here's the first half of the simple summary: We believe what we want to believe, and once we believe something, it becomes a self-fulfilling truth."

Godin claims that marketers are not, in fact, supposed to lie. Godin expresses that marketers should be storytellers - but truthful ones. From page XVI in the Preface: "Here's the second part of the summary: When you are busy telling stories to people who want to hear them, you'll be tempted to tell stories that just don't hold up. Lies. Deceptions. This sort of storytelling used to work pretty well. Joe McCarthy became famous while lying about the "Communist Threat." Bottled water companies made billions while lying about the purity of their product compared with tap water in the developed world. The thing is, lying doesn't pay off anymore. That's because when you fabricate a story that just doesn't hold up to scrutiny, you get caught. Fast."

Following his own lead, Godin's title for the book is a lie. He wrote in the introduction: "I wasn't being completely truthful with you when I named this book. Marketers aren't liars. They are just storytellers... I was trying to go to the edges. No one would hate a book called All Marketers Are Storytellers. No one would disagree with it. No one would challenge me on it. No one would talk about it."

Press and reviews

Before its publication, All Marketers Are Liars was serialized in Fortune Magazine.{{cite news

References

References

1. O'Sullivan, Terry. (October 2006). "All Marketers Are Liars: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World". Journal of Targeting, Measurement and Analysis for Marketing.
2. [http://www.helloworldblog.com/2005/05/business_blog_b.html Business Blog Tour: Seth "Pinnocchio" Godin] on HelloWord, May 24, 2006.
3. Godin, Seth "All Marketers Are Liars" pg XV
4. Godin, Seth "All Marketers Are Liars" pg XVI
5. Godin, Seth ''All Marketers Are Liars'' pgs 15, 134
6. [http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/bio.asp About Seth] {{Webarchive. link. (2015-05-11 "All Marketers are Liars made the Amazon Top 100 and has been translated into more than a dozen languages.")
7. Patcher, Richard. The Miami Herald. "The Miami Herald business book review." June 20, 2005
8. Brown, Paul. The New York Times. "How to Do the Right Thing? Count the Ways" May 8, 2005
9. "All Marketers Are Liars by Seth Godin".