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

if your goal is to feel powerful and demonstrate that power to other people, this SUV does exactly what it’s supposed to do. It gives you a story you can believe, a lie you can tell yourself every time you see the car.

New products grow when they can peel off a few early adopters and persuade them that they have found the answer to their prayers. This only works when they tell their friends, though.

Not because they were persuaded with advertising. Because they were persuaded by their friends and neighbors.

What matters is that they have a story—“My friend Bob has been going there for years, and the Times wrote about it a little while ago”—that makes the Jackson Diner an eclectic but safe dining choice. That’s why the most crowded restaurants are usually not as good as they used to be. As they move through the curve, the success of the restaurant isn’

If the worldview of a targeted consumer doesn’t permit the story you’re telling to resonate, your story fails. The only recourse is to change that consumer’s worldview, and that’s almost impossible.

There are four reasons why your new release failed: 1. No one noticed it. 2. People noticed it but decided they didn’t want to try it. 3. People tried it but decided not to keep using it. 4. People liked it but didn’t tell their friends.

I was trying to go to the edges. No one would hate a book called All Marketers Tell Stories. No one would disagree with it. No one would challenge me on it. No one would talk about it.

Being remarkable, going to the edges, doing something worth talking about—these are all things that are rewarded with action by communities that care deeply.

As bikers aged, their worldview changed and so did the successful stories.