All Marketers are Liars: The Underground Classic That Explains How Marketing Really Works--and Why Authenticity Is the Best Marketing of All

Seth Godin

Nov 2009 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

The indispensable classic on marketing by the bestselling author of Tribes and Purple Cow.

Legendary business writer Seth Godin has three essential questions for every marketer:

“What’s your story?”

“Will the people who need to hear this story believe it?”

“Is it true?”

All marketers tell stories. And if they do it right, we believe them. We believe that wine tastes better in a $20 glass than a $1 glass. We believe that an $80,000 Porsche is vastly superior to a $36,000 Volkswagen that’s virtually the same car. We believe that $225 sneakers make our feet feel better—and look cooler—than a $25 brand. And believing it makes it true.

As Seth Godin has taught hundreds of thousands of marketers and students around the world, great marketers don’t talk about features or even benefits. Instead, they tell a story—a story we want to believe, whether it’s factual or not. In a world where most people have an infinite number of choices and no time to make them, every organization is a marketer, and all marketing is about telling stories.

Marketers succeed when they tell us a story that fits our worldview, a story that we intuitively embrace and then share with our friends. Think of the Dyson vacuum cleaner, or Fiji water, or the iPod.

But beware: If your stories are inauthentic, you cross the line from fib to fraud. Marketers fail when they are selfish and scurrilous, when they abuse the tools of their trade and make the world worse. That’s a lesson learned the hard way by telemarketers, cigarette companies, and sleazy politicians.

But for the rest of us, it’s time to embrace the power of the story. As Godin writes, “Stories make it easier to understand the world. Stories are the only way we know to spread an idea. Marketers didn’t invent storytelling. They just perfected it.”

Ratings and reviews

The end of the book offers good questions in a relationship to storytelling. That is the only reason I bumped this up to a 2 star review. This is a cluster of stories, companies and points that really do not seem to tie together. This book was recommended to me by a Seneca College professor for my career and portfolio launching class. I recently became the kind of person who will read entire books thanks to the help of Google Play. This is not one of the books I enjoyed quite as much. In 2015 I skimmed Content Rules. I think that is more beneficial to learn about storytelling in Marketing than this book can be.

Seth Godin has a remarkable perspective of life and business. His ability to get the point across is extremely effective. I've used many of his points and suggestions to makes sales on the Internet. He's one of my go to guys for ideas and how to implement them.

very good

About the author

Seth Godin is the author of more than a dozen bestsellers that have changed the way people think about marketing, leadership, and change, including Permission Marketing, Purple Cow, All Marketers Are Liars, Small is the New Big, The Dip, Tribes, Linchpin, and Poke the Box. He's an entrepreneur, the founder of several successful businesses and a popular TED speaker. He writes one of the most influential business blogs in the world at sethgodin.com.