Marketers are bad at mind games.

Mind games in the way of trying to out think the competition or sell anyone on their marketing efforts.

They are bad because most “marketers” start with what they like or what their nephew likes or what they think a group of people like.

They don’t start with empathy – they start with thinking they already have the answer.

They start writing, thinking they are giving their gift to the world, when really what was called for was to listen to the customer. To see them.

You want to avoid mind games as a marketer because changing a group of people doesn’t happen in your head – it happens in the real world.

As ad people, we usually start with goals that focus on the gaining of something:

Gain more market share.

Get more customers.

Reach more people.

What if our goal instead was not to have bad advertisements?

We would then see what makes an advertisement perform poorly:

Inauthentic and rushed creation.

Not interesting or helpful to the customer.

Boring, off brand and generally just garbage.

Marketers spend to much time on trying to gain more instead of trying to lose less with each ad they create.