Advertising Has Been Outlawed. Now What?
by Johnny Molson
This is a thought experiment. Not clickbait.
It’s January 1st, 2027. Somebody has just decided it’s against the law to advertise. And I mean everything. No TikToks, no skywriting, no Instagram posts, no radio, no television, no AI. If you so much as put a flyer on somebody’s windshield, you’re going to prison.
Now what?
In a previous article, I shared that advertising makes up about 8% of Marketing. This confounds many businesses (and marketers) because 100% of their time is spent on commercials and they call it “marketing.”
So, let’s enact our imaginary law outlawing advertising and think about what you’re left with. Turns out… quite a bit.
Price
You can still use your price. Up or down, price sends a message. Up or down, price changes your profits. Warren Buffett said, “If you have to have a prayer session before raising the price by a tenth of a cent, then you’ve got a bad business.” Pricing power, Buffett said, is “the single most important decision in evaluating a business.”
Distribution
Distribution is another tool you would still have. Which is a fancy way to say, “how can we shrink the gap between ‘customer wants it’ and ‘customer has it?’” That lever is Amazon’s entire business model. But it predates Mr. Bezos. Henry Ford knew it, Post-War Japan enhanced it, and Just-In-Time, or “Lean Manufacturing” raged throughout the 80s and 90s.
Product
And then there’s the product itself. Or the service you provide. Is this thing you’re selling so good… so incredibly good, people can’t stop talking about it? When the Maître d’ asks, “how was your meal,” and you reply, “it was great, thanks” it means that restaurant underperformed. They’re not hoping for “it was great” or “fine, thank you.” They’re hoping for an orgasmic level reaction that you can’t stop telling the world about.
Companies like Harley Davidson, Lululemon, Costco, and Trader Joe’s all got to their consumers with little, or sometimes no advertising at all. Tesla, Disney Theme Parks, In-N-Out Burger, even Warren Buffett’s own Berkshire Hathaway. How did you hear about them? Because it wasn’t an ad. A
None of this should imply that you’re slacking off because you advertise. And I don’t subscribe to the Josh Kaufman idea that “advertising is the tax you pay for being unremarkable.” That’s silly. If you don’t invite people to your party, don’t be surprised when nobody shows up.
You have a great company. You might even have a better than great company.
The thought experiment is this: If you had to turn up the lever on something that isn’t advertising, what would it be?
- What’s in your control right now?
- What sort of unleveraged asset exists in your company today?
- What sort of hard, calcified “rules” does your industry have that you can break?
“If a man has good corn, or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1855
