The essence of quality marketing is the maximum possible communication your product's value to a potential customer. How to do that is the essence of this marketing book. To increase market share, you need to lower your prices or add value (or, advertise the heck out of your product, hoping for robot-like response).

What needs to be defined here is the difference between the two forms of approach. If you haven't seen the movie "Crazy People," starring Dudley Moore, rent it today. It is mandatory viewing for any business person. Aside from the comic relief value, what it has to offer is an interesting and informative view of direct marketing versus image marketing. Dudley falls from grace at an advertising agency and ends up in an asylum, There, he allows the locals to write promotions. The results are ads like, "If you wanna go to the bathroom, you gotta get (a laxative)." This ad causes a virtual (pardon the pun) run on the local pharmacies. Have you ever heard the statement, "If you want the truth, ask a kid or a drunk"? This is your basic "tell-it-like-it-is" or "cut-to-the-chase" type of benefit advertising.

A second ad (in the movie) said, "If you wanna get the girls, you gotta get a Porsche." It had results similar to the laxative ad. Get the point? These are ads based on real, expected (and experienced) results, not hyped up illusions and fantasies.

The opposite is exemplified in the pretzel ads that show Jason Alexander (George from the "Seinfeld" show) being picked out of a crowd, at random, to be an emergency hockey goalie. He makes superhuman saves, while eating pretzels, and ends up saving the game and then gets the prom queen. This is also reflected in the Christmas perfume ads that almost guarantee romance and fulfillment of your every desire if you buy a particular fragrance.

Are you looking for an illusion or a valid result from doing business with you? It's a choice, a matter of perspective, like lower prices or added value; it's a business decision. Illusion may result in an increase in business, however, both pricing and illusions are easy to top by the competition, and therefore represent risky business decisions. Those "crazy people" weren't so crazy!