Look, the room’s buzzing. Another AI darling is on stage, promising to “democratize insights” or some such nonsense. But the real story? It’s always the same old song: who’s actually getting paid here, and what are they selling that isn’t snake oil?
It’s a bit like watching a magician. You see the flourish, the puff of smoke, and then the rabbit appears. But nobody’s talking about the trapdoor, or the assistant who’s been stuffing the rabbit into a tiny hat backstage.
This whole notion of marketing use? It’s a concept that’s been bandied about for decades. The original text talks about a guy named Bill who saved a building and made a fortune by asking the right question at the right time. Brilliant. Doesn’t cost much, creates a lot. That’s use.
But for most marketers these days, it’s become this elusive unicorn, chased with increasingly expensive, and often pointless, campaigns. They’re so busy doing marketing – churning out content, blasting ads, collecting data points – that they forget the whole damn point: to actually move people.
Marketing exists to create movement — from disinterest to curiosity, from curiosity to confidence, and from confidence to action, then hopefully, evangelism. use is the ability to create that movement.
And that, my friends, is where the shiny facade cracks. Because attention is cheap. Trust? Action? That’s the hard currency. And most of what I see flying around out there is just expensive distraction.
Why “Brand Awareness” Isn’t The Magic Bullet
We’ve all been there. You’re looking at a campaign that’s gone viral. Millions of views. Every influencer is talking about it. The client’s ecstatic, convinced they’ve cracked the code.
And then… crickets. Sales don’t budge. The needle doesn’t move. Why? Because being noticed is not the same as being trusted. It’s like shouting your name across a crowded room. People might hear you, they might even chuckle at your boldness, but they’re not suddenly inclined to hand over their life savings.
This is False use #4, according to the source material, and it’s a big one. Companies spend fortunes building awareness – thinking that if enough people recognize their logo, they’ll buy. It’s a fundamentally flawed assumption. Awareness gets you in the door; understanding and trust get you the order. And that understanding? It doesn’t come from a data dashboard.
Data: Your Friend, Or Your Deceptive Overlord?
Oh, the data. Marketers are swimming in it. We’ve got more data than a blockchain convention. But here’s the kicker: the more data you have, the easier it is to get lost. We’re mistaking observation for insight, and we’re building entire strategies on what people do without understanding why.
This is False use #2: Data masquerading as understanding. It’s the difference between knowing someone’s liked 50 romantic comedies and actually understanding what makes them fall in love. Sure, you can track clicks, conversions, dwell times. You can build elaborate personas based on demographics and past behavior. But do you know them? Do you know their fears, their secret desires, the messy, complicated trade-offs they grapple with every single day?
I’ve seen teams with more data than sense. They’re so blinded by the numbers that they can’t see the human sitting on the other side of the screen. They’re running A/B tests on button colors while their core value proposition is lost in translation. It’s like performing open-heart surgery with a butter knife.
When Clarity Becomes Obscurity
And then there’s the old chestnut: complexity masquerading as clarity. This is False use #1. You know the drill. You’ve got a product so brilliant, so nuanced, so utterly revolutionary (there’s that word again) that it takes three whiteboarding sessions and a glossary to explain it. The team, buried in their own jargon, genuinely believes they’ve made it simple.
My personal favorite was a generative AI startup. The founders thought their product was as straightforward as ordering a coffee. It took me three calls to even grasp the basics. Their prospects, predictably, weren’t so patient. They’d bail long before they got to the “aha!” moment, assuming the problem was theirs, not the company’s.
The irony is, simplicity is hard. Real clarity comes from deep understanding, not from assuming your audience shares your intimate knowledge. It requires stripping away the jargon, the technical mumbo-jumbo, and speaking directly to the human need.
Cleverness vs. Connection: Who Wins?
False use #5: Cleverness masquerading as persuasion. Marketers, bless their hearts, love a good punchline. They chase witty taglines and viral stunts, convinced that if it’s funny or shocking, it’ll work. And sure, it’ll get attention. It might even get shared. But will it make someone open their wallet?
More often than not, the answer is a resounding no. Cleverness is a distraction. It’s the smoke and mirrors. What actually moves people, what builds that elusive use, is speaking a truth that resonates. It’s hitting a nerve. It’s making someone feel seen, understood, maybe even a little vulnerable.
Think about it. When was the last time a truly clever ad made you change your fundamental behavior? Probably never. But a campaign that tapped into a deep-seated fear, a quiet aspiration, or a shared frustration? That’s the stuff that sticks. That’s the stuff that drives action.
The Real Ingredients of use
So, if all these things are false, what’s the real deal? It boils down to one thing: genuine, hard-won customer understanding. And you don’t get that by staring at a spreadsheet or by brainstorming witty taglines.
You get it by doing the grunt work. You talk to people. Not via surveys, not through focus groups where everyone’s putting on a show, but real, one-on-one conversations. You listen. You dig. You ask “why” until you’re blue in the face.
As the original article suggests, it’s about studying customers like a coach studies game film. You’re looking for patterns, motivations, the subtle undercurrents that drive decisions. And you’re not just listening; you’re watching. What do people actually do when they think no one’s looking?
This isn’t about building a “persona.” It’s about building an intimate, albeit professional, relationship with the reality of your customer’s world. It’s painstaking. It’s often unglamorous. But it’s the only way to build something that actually moves the needle, that creates genuine use, and, crucially, that makes someone finally make a purchase.
