9 Axioms of an Enlightened Marketer

With all the talk in the media and trade mags of a new Renaissance, we’ve been taking some time to evaluate what exactly that might mean. Since the staff at XNet have never looked good in plunging necklines or crushed velvet we’ve decided to move the clock forward past the average futurist’s line of sight, buckle on our shoes, and start settling in for the Post-Neo-Renaissance Enlightenment.

We hope that things may have rounded out by then so that Marketing is no longer the handmaid of Deceit. To spur this desperately needed transition along here are 9 marketing axioms that eschew baroque emotional appeal and embrace the cold elegance of reason:

~ : 9 Axioms of an Enlightened Marketer : ~

We are conversationalists, not carny barkers. Conversing leads to engagement, barking just moves the shills along.
Engagement requires active participation. Remote islands with hostile inhabitants are rarely visited by the vacationing set.
To participate you must be present at the party, to be present you must be an agreeable guest.
A good message is mutually reciprocated like a brotherly handshake, not endured like blunt force trauma.
Uniqueness and quality are not easily copied, be wary of best practices that have gone stale.
Even with the philosopher’s stone of marketing in hand, conjuring in front of the wrong audience will get you burned at the proverbial stake.
No matter how artful, aesthetically pleasing, coercive or perfect, a product or service’s marketing message is only worth as much as the product or service being marketed.
However, a well crafted message that spends more time on universal concepts than on product placement can transcend its use-value to become valuable in itself.
When you realize that Shakespeare, Milton & Goethe were marketing their ideals you realize the bar for professionalism is set much higher than they told you in business school.