Marketing Life

I know the nature of marketing. I’ve studied it, Randy & I survive because of it, and every one of us is a target of it. But today as I pondered over my post, I took a break to thumb through one of my newly arrived magazines and found myself flipping from ad to ad just to read the taglines. Sure there were many products and services being marketed with obviously relevant wording, such as “SMOOTH SKIN IS IN” for Jergens Ultra Healing lotion. But I was more interested in the tag lines that were trying to sell me experience and identity. Here are several:

Treat Your Self. Well. - Neutrogena Body
live. life. naturally. - Naturalizer
alive in the world - Eileen Fisher
Ready to Star in Your Own Life? - Dr. Phil (He’s already written the script for you!)
make every day wonderful - Wonderful, the fragrance by American Beauty
art ~ vision ~ life - Sigrid Olsen
What kind of classic are you? - Talbots
What dreams are made of… - Maidenform
live the dream - Euphoria, the fragrance by Calvin Klein
do something good for yourself - Lean Cuisine
Snack Happy - Nabisco
It’s not the destination… it’s the journey. - Purina BusyBone (experience for my dog?)
Keep life fresh - Buitoni
Create something great. - Hormel

Two ads used questionnaires answered by the “models” to display how personal the experience of choosing clothes or a salad could be and how it would make me feel more like myself. – Dressbarn & McDonalds

It’s not new for advertisers to promise amazing results in return for purchasing something. But the shift I sense is that instead of promising the product will do the work, it seems that these products are just begging to experience this great adventure you are about to go on. Instead of promoting the all-powerful product, these advertisers are realizing we have the power to create amazing experiences and incredible identities and if we use what they are offering they can take some of the credit.

How much power do we give away?

(Disclaimer: Now this discussion can get pretty sticky because there are lots of factors that need to be given attention in order to arrive at any conclusions. So forgive me if I don’t get to all of those thoughts today. In fact, do me a favor and understand that anytime I post, I am usually only offering a few of my thoughts on a subject. Therefore, what you read here may not be my entire viewpoint on any given subject.)

I believe we waste power and authority. I think we spend a lot of time waiting for things to happen and very little time making things happen. I realize that almost everyone reading this post is the type of person who seeks Divine approval or what we like to call “God’s will”. I believe that pleasing the Lord and aligning ourselves with His purposes are top priority. I also think in all of our searching for the proverbial writing on the wall, we become paralyzed for much of what is at hand. We end up sleepwalking through our days waiting for someone or something to wake us up and prove its place in our destiny.

You will notice that many of the lines above allude to creating a life worth living. I love Oprah’s line “Live Your Best Life.” To me, we can all live life and we can all waste it. What will it take to squeeze every last ounce of greatness out of our lives? How much responsibility do we have in creating our lives? What does it mean to live beautiful? Please click on comments below and leave your thoughts. We will be exploring this further and I long for your input.