Truly The Last Original Idea
(In Marketing)

by: Kristine Schachinger

As Gerald Jampolsky once wrote in his book, "Love Is Letting Go Of Fear", all human emotions boil down to either love or fear. (It is true, if you try the mental exercise some time they really do simplify to that set of two states.)

So I believe a similar and related principle applies to the space of marketing. In this case, "the last original idea" was, "sex". From here all things were born and all ideas come to pass.

Really? Are you sure? Well maybe not all, but almost all messages are based on the idea of getting sex, being desirable enough for sex, being worthy of sex, being good enough for sex, or simply having sex.

Not true you are thinking, what about ads for public good? Ah, but still aren't they about sex? i.e. if you are not a good person, who will want you and in the end that is about sex. What about ads for dishwasher soap? Oh well good housewife = desirable woman = sexy. What about cute baby ads, they are not about sex? Well yes, because you have a cute baby and a family, so the sex is there just more subliminal. What about funny? Funny is not sex. No? What is sexier than someone who makes you laugh?

See it all spawns from sex. Of course the word sex can also represent love, acceptance, friendship, passion, hate, or just pure raw emotion. (And a million other emotions I probably forgot) However, in the end they are all sex.

So how about social media. It is all about our desire to connect in a somewhat unconnected world, but sex? Though we do not wish to cheat on our partners or have sex with everyone on our Twitter lists (scary!) In the end, the most basic of connections is sex, so the derivative remains.

This might be too much of a stretch for some, but I maintain no matter the constraints or my argument, I bet you can make on that supports the theory as well. In fact, I bet we could all make different arguments to support "sex" as the last original idea and we would all be different and we would all be right for I contend all of marketing directs itself at the space between our loins and all messaging is spawned from this one last original idea.

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