Although I disagree with Chris Heuer‘s overall conclusion that the phrase “conversational marketing” debases conversations, I think he puts well the concerns we should have about how marketers are going to respond to the growing recognition that markets have indeed become conversations. Here’s what I said in my comment on his post:

Marketing has to change. It has to recognize that market conversations are now the best source of information about companies and their products and services. It has to recognize that those conversations are not themselves marketing — you and me talking about whether we like our new digital cameras is not you and me marketing to each another. Neither is our conversation a “marketing opportunity.” But the temptation to see it as such is well nigh impossible for most marketers to resist.

Fortunately, the people leading the thinking about this generally do honor the conversation as the thing that must be preserved. How the meme gets taken up, however, should worry us. We need to help marketers resist their deeply bred urges. We need to make preserving the integrity of the conversation as central a marketing tenet as is not lying about product specs or prices. [Tags: chris_heuer marketing conversational_marketing cluetrain business ]

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