Why I must politely disagree with Seth Godin

by Mark Schaefer

Seth Godin is a godlike figure in the marketing pantheon, and deservedly so. After you read the headline for this post you may be ready to get out the torches and pitchforks to hunt me down … so first, allow me to set the record straight.

I love Seth Godin’s books and I’m a longtime fan. I reference him often in my own work. There is no marketing author in history who thinks as deeply, or expresses himself as beautifully, as Seth. And 99 percent of the time, we are closely aligned in our thinking.

Except this time. I disagree with Seth, and not by a little.

The purpose of marketing

In Seth’s new collection of musings, This Is Marketing, he emphasizes that marketing is about changing things: “Marketers make change. We change people from one emotional state to another,” he writes.

Any time change is needed, that is marketing, he said. If we need to change somebody’s opinion, their purchasing habits, their vote … that’s marketing. “Marketing means you need to change someone, or perhaps a group of some ones.”

But as I read Seth’s book, his repeated emphasis on changing people seemed … out of step with the world somehow.