What have the criminals ever done for us?

What have the criminals ever done for us?

How do you market the unmarketable?

Take crime. Ever wondered how important crime is to the economy and your livelihood? How would you market the benefits of crime? Think it can’t be done?

Consider this.

Imagine a world without theft, criminal damage, murder, or student riots. We'd have no need for the courts, police, lawyers, security guards, prisons, prison vans, the probation service, graffiti removers or witness protection. Think of the job losses. The insurance industry would be decimated, we'd have much less use for our hospitals, window and door locks, or car trackers, and you wouldn't want to be in the house alarm or CCTV game would you?

Whole industries like speed cameras and nightclub bouncers would disappear overnight. The knock-on impacts would include major drops in the demand for vehicles, petrol, handcuffs and keys. Less petrol means less tax raised, which might mean even higher VAT. The lack of available bad news would render much of Fleet Street redundant and newspapers would almost certainly go to the wall. No Scotland Yard, no MI5, and no MI6. Not even car clampers or tax inspectors would be needed. No part of society would be left unscathed by the lack of crime.

Think about it this way and you realise how poor the criminal fraternity is at marketing the benefits their industry offers. There’s no equivalent to the Banking Association’s Angela Knight out there combating the bad press by talking up the wider benefit of crimes. Criminals don’t make the most of the positive promotion they receive on film and television through the endless detective stories from Sherlock to CSI.

So how would you market the positives of crime? How about a ticking clock on the fourth pillar in Trafalgar Square which counts its positive contribution to GDP every second? What about highlighting what would otherwise be truly horrendous crime-free unemployment statistics by sponsoring the sides of police cars? What about sponsoring the news….after all most of it is about crime anyway- “Tonight’s news is brought to you by you al-Qaeda, global sponsors of hospital and construction jobs”

The point here is that every business has a positive impact somewhere for someone, and in truth we are all guilty of assuming customers will realise it without it being made clear to them. So many benefits are hidden from the customer because of lazy marketing. In promoting your message it’s important to dig deep into what’s special about what you do and tell people about it.

This is so much more the case in these austere competitive times, times for which marketing was really made. So, rather than cut spend back to save cash, you should be investing in interesting dialogue with your customers who are, after all, the font of all of your profits. Business only really has two functions, innovation and marketing, the rest is supporting detail.

Alex Pratt OBE is founder of www.seriousreaders.com and author of Austerity Business: 39 Tips for doing More with Less.

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