Yesterday I was over at Seth’s blog and read his article basically advising marketeers not to dumb down their messages because doing so attracts dumb customers. Then I thought about it, and something about it bothered me. So I thought about it some more, gave it time to digest but it just didn’t sit well because I completely disagree with the whole notion of a “dumb customer”. There are no dumb customers, only customers with different needs.

The “dumb customer” basically equates to the mass market, the great unwashed and the homogenized consumer. The type of consumer that can be conveniently characterized as John Q. Public , Suzy Homemaker or Joe Six Pack and that marketeers look at as one big cliché waiting to be told what to buy. Of course this kind of customer doesn’t really exist and probably never existed, consumer behavior is complex, it can’t just be reduced to dumb and smart, mass and niche. This is even more the case in era where media is more fragmented and people can form communities of thousands dedicated to the most obscure pursuits and are continually finding ways to differentiate themselves through the consumption choices they make. Each of these communities is a tribe that speaks it’s own dialect and if you don’t speak their language they will ignore you.

Today’s marketing has to be multilingual, it has to be able to talk to a diverse array of consumers and engage them by speaking their language. No more is it a case of one speaking to the many, it is a case of one speaking to many groups of comparatively few.

I think it’s often the case that there are dumb marketeers rather than dumb customers. Marketeers who are dumb in the sense of being unable to speak, unable to communicate and unable to engage consumers.