Mark Twain once wrote an angry letter to a salesman who was trying to sell him the “Elixir of Life,” a medicine that claimed to cure Meningitis and Diptheria. It goes like this:
Dear Sir,
Your letter is an insoluble puzzle to me. The handwriting is good and exhibits considerable character, and there are even traces of intelligence in what you say, yet the letter and the accompanying advertisements profess to be the work of the same hand. The person who wrote the advertisements is without doubt the most ignorant person now alive on the planet; also without doubt he is an idiot, an idiot of the 33rd degree, and scion of an ancestral procession of idiots stretching back to the Missing Link. It puzzles me to make out how the same hand could have constructed your letter and your advertisements. Puzzles fret me, puzzles annoy me, puzzles exasperate me; and always, for a moment, they arouse in me an unkind state of mind toward the person who has puzzled me. A few moments from now my resentment will have faded and passed and I shall probably even be praying for you; but while there is yet time I hasten to wish that you may take a dose of your own poison by mistake, and enter swiftly into the damnation which you and all other patent medicine assassins have so remorselessly earned and do so richly deserve.
Adieu, adieu, adieu!
Mark Twain
If I could write like this and if letters were still a thing, I’d have written a few just for laughs. And a few more for posterity. Alas, I’m not Mark Twain and sales letters go straight to trash. So for now, I’ll just use this newsletter to pontificate about the salesman’s greatest mistake. It is instructive for marketers.
The salesman, J. H. Todd, gets two critical aspects of marketing really wrong if you go by the traditional definition of the marketing mix. This might be beneath most of you reading this newsletter but the old school marketing is all about the 4Ps: Product, Pricing, Place (or distribution) and Promotion.
A portrait of the American writer Mark Twain taken by A. F. Bradley in New York, 1907
Todd, the salesman, got the Place and Promotion completely wrong. And of course, the product couldn't have worked. Clearly, the outcome is a very angry Mark Twain and 115 years later, a nomination from me to the marketing wall of shame of all time.
Meningitis and Diptheria are largely treatable now and fewer people are infected by them these days. Modern medicine has made much progress. Much water…bridge. And so the 4Ps of marketing have become 4Cs. But idiots, a long procession of them dating back to Mr Todd and by extension to the Missing Link, are a thriving breed.
If he was alive, Mr Todd would even have a shot at redemption. For there are marketers far worse and far more today. Look no further than the digital ads that follow you after you’ve bought a product; the horrible puns that have taken over copywriting; the overpriced ‘smart’ electric scooters or the obscenely inefficient practise of throwing money at prospects that passes for digital marketing. Note to self: Don’t get started on terribly timed push notifications.
God knows we could use more informed and sensible marketers.
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🥁To that end, we’re going to launch a new series for marketers on the Use Case podcast. The 4-5 part series will have some exclusive content for paying subscribers (not a subscriber yet? Click the button below and buy a subscription) and lots of free listening on the podcast. In the first episode of the series on product marketing, we’ll discuss Consumer Psychology and with the Donald Trump campaign as a case with Dr Syagnik Banerjee of University of Michigan- Flint.
Also, thank you for all the love. We’re close to a thousand subscribers and we want to make it more valuable for you.
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🎺From next week, the Turnaround newsletter will be published on Friday, featuring a noteworthy event from the world of tech and startups and a smart take on that, and sections for great articles, tweets, tips and tools curated specially for you.
🎺Starting with our series on Marketing, the Use Case podcast will go live every Monday. As we go along, we’ll increase the depth and breadth of our coverage as long as we’re able to serve you high-quality discourse.
That’s it from this week folks. We’ll see you next week!
Cheers,
JPK & Ravish