Seth Godin

The keynote speaker at Forum was Seth Godin, an author of several books on the "new" marketing, including Purple Cow. He spoke about one of the main reasons people buy -- because it makes them feel good. This isn't revolutionary. We all know Hummer's are expensive because people are willing to pay a lot to show off their status. And people buy iPods not because they make your digital music sound better, but because they're so darn cool (which they are).

So, it's hard to disagree with him and he's very compelling because he's such a wonderful public speaker. But I think of bit of what he said is overstated. I'm not sure B2B is the same as B2C in this regard, though he said he thinks it is.

Sure, no one ever got fired by buying IBM. And sure, your CEO will listen to you more if you have a consulting report from McKinsey & Co. than from Mike McKinsey LLC (even if both recommend the same thing) so I understand his point there. But I still think that emotional buying is MOSTLY in the realm of consumer products, not multimillion dollar server farms or jet engine parts.