What is the Gray Matter with Marketing?

I always read what Dad sends me. I figure anyone who can be a successful life insurance agent in a rural New Hampshire town of 500 deserves serious business respect. His recent gift was Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind. He said the book proves I am in the right business. Pink claims that right-brainers—generalized as creative people who think holistically and intuitively—will soon lord over left-brainers, or people who are more analytical and linear in their thinking. The triumph of berets and clove cigarettes!

This is a big change, and a coup for Parisians. We Americans have emphasized our left brains for centuries, and to good measure. Our left brains have brought us farming, assembly lines, motherboards, and wealth. The problem is that computers are better left brainers than we are. Anything that can be systematized is digitized, and then to add insult to injury, is outsourced.

The best marketing doesn’t take a side, or rather takes both sides, employing the left and right hemispheres equally. Dry data can come alive through stories, and it works the other way as well! Stories are relevant—and worth remembering—when they are backed by persuasive statistics. This means making sure you have your toes touching the warm sand while your head is in the clouds. That is a good thing, because I don’t look great in a beret (see photo as proof), and I cough easily when smoking.