Marketing is often reduced to a matter of sales, promotions, and money. A short-sighted view that ignores the beating heart of this discipline. Marketing is, above all, the science of communication. It is the art and technique of making something perceived, understood, and ultimately appreciated. Whether it's a product, a service, or even a political idea.
But what is this "value" that everyone talks about and few truly grasp?
Value: Objective and Perceived
Value has two faces. The objective or intrinsic one, linked to cost, effort, raw materials. Producing a car costs millions. This is a fact. Then there's the subjective or perceived value, the one that forms in the mind of the potential buyer. This is where marketing plays its decisive role.
The work of marketing is to create value in the minds of potential customers.
People don't buy an object for the object itself. They buy the value they attribute to it. A company can have the technically best product in the world, but if it fails to communicate its perceived value, it will fail. The task of marketing is to bridge this gap, transforming a production cost into a desirable benefit in the eyes of the market.
Communication that Pierces the Screen of Rationality
How is this value communicated? It's not enough to list technical features or shout "it's the best".
Effective communication, the kind that truly drives choices, needs to take a bolder leap: it must reach the unconscious mind.
Psychology tells us that about 80% of our decisions are driven by unconscious processes, not by cold rationality. We drive a car, choose a product at the supermarket, trust a brand often without linear and conscious reasoning. We act on automatisms, emotions, ingrained perceptions.
Traditional marketing speaks to the rational mind. Deep marketing, the truly effective kind, speaks to the unconscious. And to do this it uses sophisticated tools: storytelling, symbols, repetition, emotional associations. That's why advertisements are repeated endlessly: not to bore us, but to carve a groove in our deepest psyche.
The Art Directors: The "Magicians" of Consensus
Who masters these techniques? Figures like Art Directors or creative directors. They are not simply graphic designers or copywriters. They are experts in communication sciences applied to the psychology of the masses. Their task is to influence, convince, create needs where they didn't exist before.
They are able, metaphorically, to "sell ice to Eskimos". Their power is directly proportional to another factor, often hushed up: the ignorance and preparedness of the audience.
The System and Programmed Mediocrity
Here the reflection becomes more raw and personal.
I think the effectiveness of these persuasion techniques is at its maximum where it finds fertile ground: an uninformed mass, educated not to think too much, to choose impulsively.
The effectiveness of communication techniques is directly proportional to the ignorance of the people to whom the messages are directed.
It's no coincidence that the mainstream educational and media system often does not reward critical thinking, in-depth analysis, the patience of evaluation. Why? To create a receptive market, an audience whose choices are as emotional and unconscious as possible, therefore easily steerable. If people were fully rational, aware, and critical, many marketing strategies would collapse.
Are we being educated to be "emotional machines" rather than rational individuals? Is the mediocrity of consumption choices an accidental byproduct or a functional condition of the economic system? These are uncomfortable questions that we must ask ourselves.
Entrepreneurship: Beyond Survival, Towards Value
This discourse brings us straight to another crucial point: what does it mean today to do business? Most company owners wake up thinking about bills, problems, ruthless competition. It's a life of suffering, not of fulfillment.
The true entrepreneur, according to my vision, is not just an owner.
He is the one who, understanding these deep dynamics (value, communication, human nature), actively contributes to the growth of society. He does not just sell a product; he offers and communicates an authentic value that improves, in some way, people's lives.
But to do this, it takes preparation that goes far beyond management courses. It requires understanding the System we are immersed in, its unwritten rules, the psychological mechanisms that move the markets. Without this awareness, the small entrepreneur is destined to be crushed by those who master and finance these mechanisms.
A Call to Preparation (and Truth)
Therefore, the conclusion is bitter but necessary: you cannot consider yourself an entrepreneur if your only concern is monthly survival. You must elevate yourself. You must study. You must understand that success is not a lottery, but the result of a deep understanding of value and communication, combined with the ability to navigate a system that does not play in your favor by default.
We will stop being "consumer slaves" or entrepreneurs in perpetual crisis only when we collectively decide to raise the level of our preparation and critical thinking.
Perhaps it's utopian, but it's the only way.
We should perhaps start thinking about a business school that doesn't just teach accounting and traditional marketing, but educates to the understanding of value, the psychology of the masses, and systemic dynamics? A project like this would not only form better entrepreneurs, but more aware citizens.
Ultimately, it all boils down to a fundamental question: do we want to survive in a game whose rules we don't know, or do we want to learn to play to finally live a full and prosperous life? The choice, as always, is ours. But first, we must have the courage to face reality, without sugarcoating it.