Marketing is not just a bunch of fancy words

At a group dinner the other night, an acquaintance asked my opinion about a product his friend was working on.

Would I be willing to pay for a watch if it could be guaranteed the face was one-of-a-kind? (My answer: That's not something that would get me to choose a watch, but I also admit I'm not much of a watch person.) After a lively discussion, he described it again: the face is a piece of art, with a certificate of authenticity on blockchain.

"That's completely different, and I could see people being interested in that," I said. "People collect art, they collect baseball cards. That's completely different than how you first described it."

"It's exactly the same thing."

He was puzzled.

"It's just marketing."

I laughed. "It's marketing. Not 'just' marketing. You can have the best idea in the world, but if you don't describe it to people in a way that intrigues them, it really doesn't matter what you have."

A lot of attention is paid in the tech world on the technology itself. As well it should be. If the technology is poor, why would anyone want to use it?

But marketing too often is an afterthought. It's a "soft" skill. Anyone can write a Facebook post that goes viral and whammo, you're done!

The most successful companies pay as much attention to marketing as they do to their products. An argument could be made that Nike and Coca-Cola became the icons they are because of brilliant marketing. Apple, too.

This doesn't mean that if you have a great marketing team that they can overcome significant product deficiencies. What it does mean is that you're tying one hand behind your back if you don't involve marketing from the beginning.