{"id":3782,"date":"2025-10-17T13:37:26","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T18:37:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/capertongillett.com\/blog\/?p=3782"},"modified":"2025-10-17T13:49:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T18:49:18","slug":"adversarial-marketing-the-audience-isnt-the-enemy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capertongillett.com\/blog\/adversarial-marketing-the-audience-isnt-the-enemy\/","title":{"rendered":"Adversarial marketing: The audience isn\u2019t the enemy."},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"Photo
“Suck it, Grandma.” (We’ll get there.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

I\u2019ve said in the past that one reason I love advertising is that it\u2019s creativity you can win at. You\u2019ve got goals, indicators, KPIs, and you\u2019re being creative while<\/em> also trying to achieve things. I mean, don\u2019t get me wrong, I also love creativity for its own sake, but I love the challenge of being creative plus<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, I don\u2019t know that \u201cwin\u201d really is the most accurate word. Achieving goals isn\u2019t necessarily a \u201cwinning\u201d kind of thing. There\u2019s beating PRs as much as opponents. And (outside of, obviously, winning out over business<\/em> competitors) advertising and marketing aren\u2019t a thing where any of the parties have to come out a loser. Theoretically, we can all win. As long as we all want to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I\u2019m not saying people are going around trying to specifically not<\/em> do that. I\u2019m just saying it can start to slip in. \u201cAdversarial marketing\u201d is the kind where it turns into marketers vs. audience, where you start to see the audience as an obstacle to your goals, and now your job is to get around their defenses and figure out angles that will make your product\/service\/brand look like something they<\/em> need so you can get what you<\/em> need from them. Which is not how it\u2019s supposed to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Staunch, fluff-headed headed idealism<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s (usually) not something we mean to do or something we\u2019re taught, but when (for instance) a changing industry puts new demands on us while our goals and tools don\u2019t adapt to meet them, everything<\/em> can start to look like an obstacle. And anything<\/em> can start looking like a necessity to overcome it. We might start doing things that aren\u2019t effective. Or things that aren\u2019t entirely aboveboard \u2014 even if they don\u2019t meander all the way into an ethical breach or technically<\/em> cross any lines in terms of (just for one example) truth in advertising, it\u2019s still close enough that it it makes me, at least, uncomfortable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because you might have picked up on the fact that I\u2019m a staunch, fluff-headed marketing idealist, haunted by adorable visions of some abstract rightness<\/em> and how advertising and marketing are supposed to go. How we\u2019re supposed to be promoting the right product or service to the right audience, and creative isn\u2019t even so much about convincing<\/em> as it is about communicating<\/em>. We have information the audience would benefit from hearing, and message strategy is just a matter of finding the best way to connect with them to provide them with such information in a way they can understand it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hey, there\u2019s this product that you should look into. We know you\u2019re dealing with X, and you want Y, and our product, Z, would help with those things. You should look into Z. Here\u2019s how to do it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obviously, the actual execution of conveying said message is a little more nuanced and graceful than all that. People don\u2019t respond to stuff like that, and straight-up our job exists because creative, compelling, connective ways of communicating are the most effective way of doing it. But we\u2019re doing it because it\u2019s the best way to communicate that information they would benefit from knowing \u2014 not because if we can just get inside their heads, we can manipulate them into doing what we want them to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How it should be done (says the fluff-headed idealist)<\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
\"Photo
(Well, okay, not so much that way either.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Done right (Done Right) marketing shouldn\u2019t have to be adversarial at all. We go in knowing who our audience is, and what our product is, and that our product is beneficial to our audience. If marketing wanders into adversarial territory \u2014 if we start facing off against our audience, doing whatever we can to get the conversion, meet the KPI \u2014 that means something is off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the audience isn\u2019t responding<\/strong> to the message, <\/strong>it could be because we don\u2019t know enough about them and\/or the product to properly craft and convey our message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If our messaging isn\u2019t compelling<\/strong> to the audience, it could be our strategy is off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If our strategy isn\u2019t right<\/strong>, it could be the audience or product insights we\u2019ve been handed are incomplete or inaccurate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Of course, in all situations, we have to accept that \u201cmaybe there\u2019s no one else to blame and we\u2019re just bad at our job\u201d is a possibility. Sorry.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And while it can be tempting to think about it as something that happens to creatives, anyone in the team can fall victim \u2014 anyone can, over time (or even over not much time), fall into the idea that the insights, strategy, creative, whatever we\u2019re generating are our tools for defeating the audience adamantly standing between us and success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marketing needs to be a partnership between the marketing team and the client. But it also needs to be a tacit agreement with our audience<\/a> that if they\u2019ll listen to our message, the message we send them will be legit. If they listen and what we send them is hinky or manipulative, we\u2019re falling down on our end of the agreement. I mean:<\/p>\n\n\n\n