Marketing, Comic Books, and Brand Evangelists

Seth Godin proposed an interesting idea in his blog yesterday. Marketing, he says, takes place like the “between the frames” action in a comic – between the marketing activities. It’s the impressions we get of your product when we’re using it, or the service we get when things go wrong.

Absolutely. Here’s another way of looking at it: marketing is not about generating leads or sales, but about driving customer advocacy. If you focus on making customers into brand evangelists, then your marketing is working full-time between marketing events. Your customers are your marketing agents. Between the frames is your intention: are you just trying to generate money from your activity, or create an experience that builds advocacy?