Marketing Matters: Four Big Words Worth Slowing Down For

BUSNESS NORTH: February 2026

This article is dedicated to an exceptionally perceptive friend, the late Dan Hansen, who died on December 28, 2025, from pneumonia and complications related to Spinal Muscular Atrophy. Despite significant physical challenges, Dan lived a rich, creative life marked by curiosity, insight, and careful attention to ideas.

 

One evening, while discussing a project we were working on, I used the word discernment. Dan paused and said, “That’s a big word.” He didn’t mean it as a criticism. He meant it as an observation.

 

As we talked about what the word meant—and how it applied not just to our project, but to decision-making more broadly—he suggested that certain words carry more weight than others. These were words worth slowing down for, words that shape how we think and act if we take them seriously.

 

Over the next few weeks, the list began to grow. What follows are the first four: 

 

Discernment, Context, Motivation, and Momentum

Each matters in marketing. More importantly, each matters because they help us make better judgments in a noisy, fast-moving environment—something Dan understood instinctively.

 

Discernment

Marketing today suffers less from a lack of information than from an excess of it. We are awash in metrics, dashboards, trend reports, expert opinions, and algorithmic advice. The temptation is to believe that if we just collect enough data, the right decision will present itself. In practice, the opposite often happens.

 

Discernment is the ability to decide what matters—and just as importantly, what does not. 

Not every new platform deserves your attention. Not every metric deserves equal weight. Not every tactic that worked for another company will work for yours. Discernment requires judgment, not just measurement. It means asking better questions before acting: Who is this for? What problem does it actually solve? Does this align with who we are and where we’re headed?

 

Without discernment, marketing becomes reactive. Businesses chase trends, imitate competitors, and respond to noise instead of signals. Effort increases, clarity decreases, and results flatten out.

 

Good marketing decisions often look boring from the outside. They involve saying no—to distractions, to shiny objects, to unnecessary complexity. Over time, discernment builds focus, coherence, and credibility.

 

In marketing, wisdom isn’t knowing everything. It’s knowing which few things deserve your attention.

 

Context

Once discernment helps clarify what deserves attention, context determines whether that attention lands well or falls flat.

 

Marketing messages do not exist in isolation. They are received at a particular moment, by a particular audience, under particular conditions. The same message can feel timely and relevant in one context—and tone-deaf or irrelevant in another.

 

Context includes more than demographics. It includes timing, culture, local conditions, economic mood, and recent events that shape how people interpret what they see and hear. A message that works nationally may miss the mark locally. A campaign that made sense last year may feel out of step today.

 

When marketers ignore context, they tend to overestimate the power of their message and underestimate the situation it enters. That’s when marketing starts to feel intrusive rather than helpful.

 

Effective marketing doesn’t just speak clearly. It speaks appropriately. That depends less on clever wording than on situational awareness.

 

Motivation

Discernment helps us decide what deserves attention. Context helps us understand where that attention will land. Motivation answers a more basic question: why anyone would care at all.

 

Good marketing does not create motivation out of thin air. People are already motivated by something—solving a problem, reducing risk, saving time, improving status, or avoiding frustration. Marketing works when it recognizes those existing motivations and aligns with them, not when it tries to manufacture desire through pressure or hype.

 

When motivation is misunderstood, marketing becomes noisy. Messages get louder, offers more aggressive, and tactics more intrusive. The assumption is that people need to be pushed. In reality, they usually need to be understood.

 

Motivation also matters internally. Organizations that lose sight of why they market often drift into activity without purpose. Without a clear motivation, effort increases while impact diminishes.

 

Marketing succeeds not by overpowering motivation, but by respecting it.

 

Momentum

With the Super Bowl approaching, it’s worth borrowing a lesson from sports.

 

In baseball, a string of base hits can be more damaging than a single home run. The rally builds pressure, unsettles the opposition, and energizes everyone involved. In football, the same principle applies. Methodical, sustained drives down the field are often more demoralizing than a single long touchdown pass. Those drives communicate control. They wear opponents down.

 

Marketing momentum works the same way.

 

Many businesses look for the equivalent of the long pass—one campaign, one viral post, one silver bullet, one promotion that suddenly changes everything. Occasionally that happens. More often, lasting advantage is built through steady progress: consistent messaging, repeated exposure, and incremental trust earned over time.

 

Momentum isn’t about speed or spectacle. It’s about direction and endurance. Familiarity takes time. Trust takes repetition. Recognition builds quietly before it becomes obvious.

In marketing, as in sports, the teams that control the field over time tend to win—not because of one dramatic moment, but because the pressure never lets up.

 

Closing

These are big words. Not because they sound impressive, but because they ask more of us. They require judgment, patience, and restraint—qualities that are easy to overlook in an environment that rewards speed and volume.

 

Discernment, context, motivation, and momentum won’t make marketing easier. But they do make it better. They remind us to slow down, think clearly, and act with intention. In a world full of noise, those may be the biggest advantages of all. 

Crowds On Demand: How Money Can Be Used to Create Illusions

My first trip to Las Vegas was in 1991. I'd gone to attend a trade show on trade shows at Bally's Convention Center. It was highly informative. For two days my boss and I attended workshops and walked the show floor, absorbing everything we could learn. 

One thing we observed was there seemed to be three pricing tiers in the booth business, just like McDonald's, except that instead of 1, 2 and 5 dollar prices, these structures were priced 5, 50 and 200.... thousands. If you had the money, there was no limit to how much you could spend once you had consultants and architects paid off.

In a similar vein, there was a wide variety of talent you could purchase for your show booth. There are national organizations with models who you can hire for the duration of your show. Kelly Girls is one such organization, but an internet search will unearth others. There are also magicians you can hire to draw crowds. Who doesn't enjoy a good magic show? This is where the "almost famous" end up, I suspect. 

There are also look-a-likes of famous people whom you can rent to work your booth. A smiling Michael J. Fox stepped over and shook my hand. A veritable twin. Same voice and mannerisms, too. Ever wonder what an actors' doubles do when the actor is not working? Yep. You can probably rent him to attract people to your booth. And for a price, you can even have the real person, if you have the bucks.

All these memories came to mind when I saw an email this week about a company called Crowds On Demand. Having been an extra in a Hollywood film, I'm aware that when movies need lots of people for crowd scenes they have systems in place to recruit them. Were you aware that there are systems in place for manufacturing crowds in real life? 

Here's their sales pitch:

"Are you looking to create a buzz anywhere in the United States? At Crowds on Demand, we provide our clients with protests, rallies, flash-mobs, paparazzi events and other inventive PR stunts. These services are available across the country in every major U.S city, every major U.S metro area and even most smaller cities as well. We provide everything including the people, the materials and even the ideas. You can come to us with a specific plan of action and we can make it happen. OR, you can approach us with a general idea and we can help you plan the strategy then execute it."
https://crowdsondemand.com/

Next I learned about another group called Demand Protest. Here's info gleaned from their site.

We are strategists mobilizing millennials across the globe with seeded audiences and desirable messages. With absolute discretion a top priority, our operatives create convincing scenes that become the building blocks of massive movements. When you need the appearance of outrage, we are able to deliver it at scale while keeping your reputation intact.

Demonstrations

We develop, recruit, manage, and execute on your high-level objectives. Our trained operatives can lead entire crowds or simply steer events in your favor.

Movements

We have the proven expertise required to expertly shape political, corporate, or public health perceptions.

Intelligence

Our operatives can embrace and steer existing organizations, providing you valuable insights about those involved and their future actions.

Training

Our strategists can train your organization in our methods of creating effective demonstrations and design the situations that will deliver your goals.

Website: www.demandprotest.com

https://www.demandprotest.com/?fbclid=IwAR0A6p6AmfcudnVvNIlJCdcziBZ3seSf_b1e2H1CoCC2-ROz9BIye3vXeOs

* * * *

When I was growing up I remember being told, "Don't believe everything you hear." When the Internet came along, we were told, "Don't believe everything you read on the Net." As time went on, online misinformation was given a name: Fake News.

The purpose of these two sayings was to encourage a healthy skepticism and critical thinking. To these I'll add a third, attributed to Edgar Allen Poe. "Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see."

When we read about these two groups--Crowds On Demand, and Demand Protest--it ought to cause us to question the things we're seeing in real life. What is really happening? Who is manipulating whom? When you see protests, are they spontaneous or organized? If organized, what's the real agenda?

Both of these organizations claim to be skilled at influencing public opinion. That is how they set their prices. Purportedly they are able to deliver on their promises. 

When we take a closer look, over the last 80 years U.S. clandestine activities have included similar hocus pocus shenanigans. On this topic much has been written and more can be said. As we following stories in the news, let's make an effort to be a little more discerning regarding what we swallow. As George Harrison once noted, "You know that what you eat your are // but what is sweet now turns so sour." 

* * * *

Related Link

He Who Controls the Narrative Controls the People

Photo at top of page by Rob Curran on Unsplash

The original blog post here was published in November 2020. I republished with a new ending because I noticed some recent stories in the news about Crowds on Demand.

Gullibility & Discernment

“A whole generation of people are being confused and overwhelmed by the electronic media and are finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish fiction from reality.”
~ Prof. Paul Kurtz, SUNY
U.S. News & World Report, May 21, 1979

For half a lifetime I have been fascinated by the problem of fraud, deception and gullibility in our culture. In the 1980s I wrote an article called “Look Before You Leap” for Christian Single magazine addressing the problem of business opportunity fraud. In the seventies young people were swept into cults like The Way, the Moonies, Eckankar and other spiritual counterfeits. What amazes me is this. We are probably the most educated country in human history, yet we seem to have a stupifying lack of common sense. It is this alarming tendency to be duped that concerns me.

One morning in January 2004 the subject of man's walk on the moon came up in our department at work. To my great surprise our web assistant stated that he did not believe man walked on the moon, that it was a hoax. I was somewhat chagrined. I knew there were people who thought that way, but to meet one in person was a surprise. For me it's like stating that there is no such thing as England. It's just a fact. This incident, and several more like it, led me to wonder what impact this kind of thinking has on today's world.

It’s important to learn how to read the news with a critical eye. Likewise, when we see movies, it takes discipline to resist the tendency to swallow what we see hook line and sinker. Modern films have great power to influence. But their power can be equally potent disinformation and misinformation. It is O.K. to be emotionally moved, but it is vital when watching films, or reading books, that we exercise discernment, ingest with care only after additional research. In Old Testament times, it was an imperative that ideas be confirmed by two or three witnesses. That is, more than one source was required to affirm a truth.

Maybe the problem today is that we are so overwhelmed with information that it takes too much work to sift through it to the kernels of truth. One helpful tool for sorting things is to not assume you have to have an opinion on everything at all times. That is, if you can have a shelf in your mind where you set ideas aside until you have more time to investigate, this can be a very helpful stance.

Let’s be careful. We not only need to get better at reading and listening, but also at hearing what's behind what we read and hear. We need to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.