First Comes Love, Then Comes Marketing

WHAT BETTER WAY to jump-start the new year than with a healthy dose of good lovin’? The ‘L’ word is often a hot topic in religious and philosophical circles, on the silver screen and yes, in basketball—ask Omar Epps and Sanaa Lathan, stars of the 2000 flick “Love & Basketball.” However, rarely, if at all, is love (the unconditional kind) ever paired with business. Can love and business mix? Apparently they can, says Sharon Price, a marketing guru, who, following the 9/11 terror attacks on the United States, traded in a long and fruitful corporate career for a more earnest version she’s coined “love-based marketing”—the idea of “bringing your business to market with love.”

PM: What is love-based marketing?

SP: Love-based marketing is a lot of things, not just one thing. But, if you were to compare it to something, you would say that it is everything but fear-based marketing, which is something that, in my almost 20 years of marketing experience, I became good at and very unthrilled with. Love-based marketing is really an attitude.

A synonym for the word “love” is “appreciation.” If you can appreciate a potential client or a non-client, even if they are telling you no, then you are loving them. Another definition of the word “appreciate” is to raise in value—if you can’t use the word “love” in
business, if that’s not comfortable for you, that’s okay. Use the word
“appreciate” because you can appreciate people, your employees, your
customers, the earth.

PM: How would you define
fear-based marketing?

SP: Fear-based marketing is
everything you see in the media and [in] advertising that says, “You’re not good enough; you’re not smart enough; you’re not pretty enough; buy our products or basically you’re going to have a horrible life and you might die.” The reason companies put things like that [out there], is because it works. People live in fear. And, the
company is living in fear. They’re afraid of their competition—that they’re not going to make their numbers. They’re afraid of all kinds of things. The vice
president of marketing is afraid that he’s going to get fired if the marketing doesn’t work.