I’m sitting in the Las Vegas airport writing this. Looking around, I see a familiar sight — people trying just a little too hard to project youth and status. A woman with too many plastic surgeries wearing clothes designed for someone half her age. The guy next to her has a bad hair dye job, fake tan and is wearing a status-symbol shirt — Gucci.
In college, I learned about signal theory. Signal theory says that every action a company takes sends a signal to the market, and customers interpret that signal to judge risk, credibility and intent.
These two people I’m low-key fixated on are clearly sending signals to the world. They want people to see them and say, “Look at that beautiful young woman,” and “Wow. That guy must be a big deal.”
But if you’re a little judgmental like I am, that’s not what you think. You may say it to the person because, to quote George Costanza, “We’re living in a civilization here.” But what I’m actually thinking is: these people are desperate.
That’s the problem with poorly constructed signals. They communicate the opposite of their intention — and that matters enormously for marketing.
Intentional communication is the bedrock of effective marketing. That’s what novice marketers miss. They are like this man and woman, chasing youth, relevance and status. But to their customers, it reads as desperation.
Pizza crashes and burns
Take, for example, perhaps the biggest marketing mistake in the history of DiGiorno.
In 2014, #WhyIStayed became a popular hashtag on Twitter among domestic abuse victims following the Ray Rice scandal, which brought domestic abuse front and center into American culture. The tweets shared by victims and their supporters were raw, emotional and vulnerable in a deeply personal way. It was a human discourse on abuse.
Amid this deeply personal dialogue came an ad for frozen pizzas. DiGiorno’s marketing team wrote: “#WhyIStayed You had pizza.” The response was swift and vicious. Within seconds, they got thousands of responses ranging from mockery and criticism to outrage. DiGiorno deleted the tweet seconds later and issued a blanket apology. Then they spent the next few hours personally apologizing to abuse survivors in their mentions, one by one. But it was too little, too late.
This is the problem with novice marketers. They want to be the life of the party, regardless of what kind of party it is. This leads them to do things for attention regardless of context. Sort of like asking for the open bar at a funeral.
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Life of the party
When I was dating my wife, there was one group of people everyone seemed to know. These women all lived in the same house and there was always something going on there. At first, it seemed like a blast, until I realized something. These women didn’t really stand out. Everyone knew the house, but couldn’t tell you much about the people living in it.
My wife was different. She wasn’t throwing parties. She wasn’t chasing social standing. She was just herself — and that made her impossible to ignore.
That’s the difference between being the life of the party and actually standing out. One is a performance for everyone. The other is a signal to the right people. That’s the distinction only expert marketers fully grasp.
Dance to your own tune
Louis Grenier is the host of the “Everyone Hates Marketers” podcast and author of the book “Stand the F*** Out.” Making a good impression is kind of his thing. On his show, he’s mentioned several businesses whose marketing does a great job of dancing to their own tune.
Grenier gives criteria for what it takes for businesses to stand out from the crowd. It has nothing to do with witty gimmicks or how (in)expertly a marketing team takes advantage of a cultural moment. Experts don’t chase the moment. They don’t need to.
They engineer the signal. Grenier puts it simply: if you can swap your logo for a competitor’s and nothing changes, your brand doesn’t stand out. It’s just the third violin in the orchestra, not the featured solo artist.
Winning brands and marketing strategies don’t get loud. They get specific, more exclusive and commit themselves to being 100% authentic. Especially if it alienates some people. Because those probably weren’t the right people in the first place.
Engine Gin
Gin is a hotly contested space in the alcohol world and differentiation is difficult. In a world of delicate glass bottles and decanters, Engine Gin went the opposite way. Their bottle looks exactly like an old motor oil can. It’s not subtle and definitely not trying to appeal to everyone. It’s a signal to the type of person who finds the sophisticated gin drinker persona pretentious. Engine didn’t chase relevance. It’s not even on their KPI list.
Fast + Light
Fast + Light is a marketing agency for ecommerce brands. Their tagline is “think of us as revenue mechanics for your ecommerce business.” Wherever they go, they wear branded mechanics shirts and stand out. Because who’s the guy the target customer is most likely to remember? Another guy in a suit or the guy in a mechanic’s shirt?
Basecamp
Most B2B SaaS companies sprint toward bigger deals with bigger companies. They want to wallpaper their website with Fortune 500 logos. Basecamp went the other way. Their copy says, “Most big software companies fight over Fortune 500 companies. They can have them.” They capped pricing at $299/month regardless of company size. They stand out because they’ve rejected the whole category playbook. They’ve created an army of loyal customers who gladly spread the good word.
The paradox of relevance
None of these brands are chasing relevance or using copycat marketing. They aren’t sending signals other than “this is who we are” and “this is what we do.” They don’t care whether everyone hears the signal. They just want the right people to hear it.
The woman in the Las Vegas airport and the man in the Gucci shirt are sending signals, too. Just not the ones they intended. Expert marketers understand that the goal isn’t to chase the next viral hit or mimic the latest trend. Chasing relevance is the fastest way to become irrelevant. They just need to be unmistakable to the right people. Build that signal, and you don’t have to chase customers. They come to you.
