Matthew Revell

In 1999, at the height of the dot-com craze, The Cluetrain Manifesto made two observations:

1. The internet makes it easier for people to talk to each other.
2. The internet makes it harder for organisations to control what is said about them.

Ninety-five stream of consciousness “theses” rammed these two points home in increasingly self-congratulatory and obtuse language, combined with a touch of confusion between marketing, marketing communications and markets.

Now, we’re blessed with Pinko Marketing: “the new age of marketing (post-Cluetrain)”. It’s hard to find a concise, coherent summary of Pinko Marketing, so here’s my attempt:

The internet has removed the distinction between consumer and producer. Therefore, traditional marketing communications practice is meaningless. The only strategy that marketers now need is to encourage the customer-base to promote the product.

The train’s return journey

Pinko’s central theme, that the internet has killed traditional marketing, would be unremarkable in itself. That idea is much like a mad uncle: however crazy or offensive his utterings, repetition has eroded his ability to shock and, most importantly, you know he’s mostly harmless.

Here’s what makes Pinko noteworthy:

• Some interesting observations, buried beneath the “too whacky for editing” style.
• An almost teenage-like rebelliousness.
• An in-built retort to people who don’t get it.
• The idea that any form of marketing could be a homage to Marx (Karl, not Groucho).

The interesting but obvious

Taking the lead from the Cluetrain boys, Pinko’s creator, Tara Hunt, outlines her vision in her own thirty-two point manifesto.

If I quote a few of the highlights, you’ll soon see why I had to create my own summary.

“1. Pinko Marketing is about the end of the Marketing Manager, Director and anyone else who thinks they have control over the message, market or ‘brand’

2. The commons…the producers…will decide what makes it ‘to market’, what flourishes, what dies, what is ignored, what is celebrated…whatever.

5. The ‘masses’ will decide what is ‘mass’ and what is not…whatever the hell ‘mass’ means…wait a minute? We aren’t being stuffed into a overarching classification? So, we can divorce ourselves from any notion that we are some monolithic mass of consuming beings? Cool.

25. Content may be king, but community is the kingdom it serves.Mike Sansone

26. Forget kings! The audience is the content. Bob Robertson-Boyd”

And so it continues. Just as with Cluetrain, this is no manifesto: it’s an outpouring of thoughts and sentiments, seemingly without the benefit of review or editing.

Has Hunt’s work “in marketing for just over 7 years” taught her nothing about the value of clear communication? To be fair to her, she admits that it’s “a very rough beginning” but, y’know, this thing’s been going for five months now.

If you’re prepared to work to get beyond this ‘language as barrier to communication’ style, it’s possible to distil some interesting observations from Pinko:

• Online communities can be powerful ways to get things done.
• If you want to harness online communities, it’s not enough to pay lip-service.
• Honesty and openness are great ways to inspire trust in your product/company.
• A good product will often sell itself.
• Centralisation is not always the best way to work.

Okay, so none of that amounts to a staggering revelation but it doesn’t hurt to restate good ideas.

The rebeliousness

Two more quotes from the Pinko Marketing manifesto:

“14. Put down the marketing plan and walk away slowly. It’ll be alright. I know. You have a tough job ahead of you. It’s called killing your inner control freak. I have the same issue.

29. Refuse to report: reporting on your Pinko Marketing wastes time describing a situation that has already changed; worse, it allows the team to delegate their responsibility to engage with customers. If the team wants a record of events, tell them to hire a documentary-maker. OK, maybe I just hate writing reports…”

This is where Pinko really exposes its naievity. Planning isn’t glamorous. Accountability highlights your weaknesses. They are, though, the two things that separate highly-paid successful marketers from amateur chancers.

It’s the equivalent of only ever eating birthday cake: it might be fun at first but soon you’ll get giddy on all the sugar, then you’ll do something stupid and throw up on your party shoes. The difference with marketing is that you’re dealing with other people’s budgets and aspirations. The story ends with you getting fired, rather than vomition; unless you’re very lucky.

If you disagree, you’re one of “them”

The conspiracy theory aspect of Pinko Marketing nicely links its misdirected rebellion with its cherrypicking from Marxism.

From Why Pinko Marketing:

“There are several levels of stakeholders who stand to lose a great deal in this commons-based rising. For such a long time, the top-down approach to business has served them well. We have been kept at bay for too long. You can smell their fear. They sue us. They jail us. They try everything in their power to silence us. The stronger we become, the more desperate their tactics become.”

By personalising the conflict - in which even the telcos are out to get us - Hunt introduces an emotional appeal and creates an exclusive club of those who get it, versus those who don’t.

Suddenly, Pinko Marketing becomes a declaration of faith and, so, no longer needs to stand up to critical reasoning. You either get it, or you’re one of them.

From her blog post, They hate our way of life:

“Anyone who wants to make a buck off of you and me hates you and me. Think about it. We are ‘target markets’.”

Can there be a marketing for Marxists?

Pinko Marketing values the collective above all else. Let’s go back to the manifesto:

“4. Amateurism means passion, curiosity, intrigue and growth. What the hell is a professional? You get paid for doing what I’m doing right now? Cool. How do I get that gig?

20. Karl Marx said “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” Amateurs are gaining the same abilities as the professionals. They outnumber the professionals, so with the levelling of the playing field their voices will become the dominant ones. You’d better be nice to them.

21. Your customers are incredibly smart, and remarkably creative. They’ll create great content that will showcase your brand better than you ever could — if what you do is any good.

31. Everyone becomes a creator — designers, developers, writers, musicians, etc. — and the marketing happens all by itself.”

Unlike Wikipedia, which aims to draw on the expertise of many individuals, Pinko actively devalues individual expertise: the mob knows best.

The “collective unconscious” is a strong theme in Pinko:

“The underlying desire that is bubbling up through an almost universal ‘a-ha’ sentiment from seemingly unrelated points all across the world. It doesn’t appear, on the surface, to have a common language, experience or character. But, more than anything, it is a desire of the commons.

We see it expressed through the spontaneous eruptions of BarCamp, coworking discussions, Web 2.0 frenzy and on sites like Wikipedia and Craigslist”

In other words, this is a special time in which people are, independently, having the same ideas and then suddenly collaborating to realise them. Even if we assume that is the way Ubuntu, Wikipedia, Firefox etc have worked - which of course it isn’t - then it’s still only the experience of a technologically super-literate minority.

Walk down your local high street and count the number of people you spot having “a-ha” moments. Or perhaps you’ll just see people making small buying decisions based on information led by marketing communications professionals.

You may have guessed, I’m not a fan

Every so often, fads come along in marketing. I think it is because marketing is the alchemy of the consumer society.

We’re trying to understand why people do things and what they want. Then we find different ways to talk to them, and make our best attempt to measure the results in a scientific fashion.

In truth, we can’t ever really know why someone bought a bar of chocolate or a particular car. Even if people tell us why they think they made a particular choice, that brings us no closer to understanding the unfathomable range of influences that led to it.

This mix of unavoidable pseudo-science, with rich rewards for the successful, takes some people into the realm of faith. That’s why companies can build a pseudo-religious experience from selling over-priced cleaning products door to door, or why Pinko Marketing has inspired many.

I do see some value in Pinko Marketing. Honesty, community and respect for customers are great assets for any brand. Real life experience shows, though, that however much we wish it weren’t true, ‘nasty’ companies still succeed.

Here’s my summary of, what I believe to be, the problems with Pinko Marketing:

• It is expressed lazily and hastily.
• It is far too assured of its own worth and relevance.
• It is far too dismissive of proven marketing practice.
• It seeks revolution for its own sake.

I am sure that I will be accused of being unkind, or I’ll be told that I don’t get it. Pinko Marketing deserves criticism: it is framed as the saviour of marketing and, besides, without criticism, ideas are never improved upon.

More importantly, I think Pinko Marketing is a seductive ideas, so we at least one voice on the contrary. And I hate to say it but Hunt has recently left the company where she developed Pinko partially because they wanted to take a traditional approach to marketing.

“Shifting your attitude to Pinko Thinking today will not only put you ahead of the curve, it will mean your survival.”

And besides, lines like that are far too smug to be left alone.