“Perfection of means and confusion of ends seem to characterize our age.” ~ Albert Einstein

We are presently witnessing an unprecedented drive for perfection in the field of marketing.

Each and every day a plethora of new emails, articles, case studies and blogs promise to help us optimize everything from search engine rankings and viral video awareness to ad campaign engagement and direct mail response rates. Business books are popping up like weeds in a field (more than twenty new titles each day) expounding on how to be authentic, influence through social networks, create compelling blogs, spread sticky messages, and tell persuasive stories. There’s only one problem: Trying to perfect this growing assortment of marketing means is causing brand confusion, and thus a negative effect on the enterprise ends.

The end, the goal, of any organization, of any brand, is to create customers (or clients, users, members, donors, fans, etc.), and you accomplish that goal by continually innovating to add value to their lives. Everything the organization invests in, and works on, should be laser focused to that end. That may sound ridiculously evident, but I can assure you that it’s not. For example, ZenithOptimed predicts that worldwide advertising expenditures will grow by a little over 6% this year to a whopping $473 billion! That’s not to say that all advertising is valueless in the eyes of customers. But I can assure you that most of that $473 billion is worse than valueless; it’s a drain on people’s time, attention, and sensibilities.

The Invisible Cognitive Force
So why do they persist? Why do marketers continue to fritter away their organizations’ valuable time, attention and money trying to keep up with, and optimize, activities that most customers find little, if any, value in? And I’m not referring simply to advertising: I’d toss most direct mail,