“I know it’s awful. I just put bread in the microwave. What did you expect?”
I was a streetfighter. I spent my post-school summers in high streets, giving out promotional materials. Usually dressed in some highly flammable outfit. That week alone, I had dressed as a train, a superhero, a load of bread, the Olympic Torch and an animal brand mascot.
On this particular day, I was delighted that I was dressed in a relatively normal red chef’s outfit, complete with a little red chef’s hat. A microwavable burger brand had just launched in the UK, and it was my job to demonstrate the immense efficiency of cooking a burger in the microwave. Less than 70 seconds.
Everyone I let try the product would politely decline to take my coupons after sampling the goods for themselves. One customer told me the product was “rancid”; another told me I’d struggle to feed it to pigeons.
Despite my relief at not having to dress up as a carrot that day, I felt utterly humiliated. I couldn’t wholeheartedly stand behind the product. The product was awful. The customers knew it. I knew it. The customers knew I knew it.
I wished I could warn people, or miraculously convince them that what they had just tasted was actually delightful. But I couldn’t. And that was the most painful realisation of all: my inability to sell the product stemmed from the simple fact that I didn’t believe in it. I had no conviction.
Authenticity matters on the front line, because conviction matters.
In marketing, we often find ourselves torn between promoting the product at hand and staying true to what we know to be good. But from my days as a streetfighter to the present, I’ve understood that there’s no substitute for belief in the product.
Over the last year, I’ve made a solemn pledge to myself: I will only work on projects that I can genuinely believe in. I know now that it’s nearly impossible to convince others to do so if I don’t have faith in what I’m marketing. Sure, this approach hasn’t always been a walk in the park. I’ve turned down tempting offers and walked away from potential partnerships.
If you can be so lucky in your opportunities, only pursue the ones you can stand next to with full conviction. It’ll make the job so much easier. And if you ever find yourself face-to-face with a microwave full of dreadful food, ask the red-hatted chef if they’ll taste it first.