The connections between French existentialism and marketing seem absurd. Well… “absurd” is an existentialist concept, so we’re off to a pretty good start.
Bear with me. In this video I’m going to explain what the existentialist philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre meant by his famous phrase, “existence precedes essence,” and why that idea has everything to do with writing a Business Value Proposition for your company.
I’m Jason McDonald, and this is Marketing Philosophy. Marketing Philosophy is where we use philosophy to understand marketing—and marketing to better understand how people think (or don’t think), choose (or don’t choose), and every once in a while actually buy your product or service. We’ll wander through Plato, Aristotle, Sartre, Nietzsche, and maybe even Taylor Swift before crashing back into the harsh reality that your boss doesn’t care about existentialism—he wants to know why the ROI is down, the CPA is up, and whether anyone clicked the damn ads.
Now, grab a French beret and a cup of strong coffee. Skip the cigarettes. Sartre smoked enough for all of us, and we know how that turned out. (He died of pulmonary edema (fluid in the lungs) in 1980, at the ripe old age of 74.
One of Sartre’s most famous quotes is:
“Man is condemned to be free.”
That sounds depressing. It actually turns out to be surprisingly useful marketing advice.
Existence Precedes Essence
Let’s start with the philosophy.
Imagine a shovel.
Or a knife.
Someone imagined it before it existed. They designed it for a purpose.
The purpose of a knife is to cut.
The purpose of a shovel is to dig.
Its essence—its reason for existing—came before the object itself.
Humans are different.
According to Sartre, we’re simply thrown into the world. We exist first.
Only later do we try to figure out what our lives are supposed to mean.
Have you ever been asked,
“So… what are you going to do with your life?”
And you had no idea?
Become a parent?
Write the Great American Novel?
Become a digital marketer obsessing over Google Ads conversion tracking?
Life doesn’t come with an instruction manual.
That’s Sartre’s point.
Existence comes first.
Meaning comes later.
Businesses Have the Same Problem
Now let’s leave Paris and visit someplace far more frightening.
A corporate conference room. Your corporate conference room. A focus group of customers grilling you (in front of the boss) as to what your business offers…
Let’s take Panera Bread.
Yes, somebody originally had an idea.
Fresh bread.
Good sandwiches.
A comfortable place to meet people.
A “third place” somewhere between home and work.
But today?
What is Panera?
A bakery?
A coffee shop?
Fast casual?
Hospital food with better branding?
An overpriced place where they stopped baking bread locally while Starbucks, artisan bakeries, and changing food trends slowly ate their lunch?
That’s a marketing existential crisis. And yes it’s being hustled by private equity. Their nickeling and diming Panera bread into the grave. Bye bye quality. Bye bye brand. Short term profits over long-term value.
Panera still exists.
But what exactly is its purpose? It’s in crisis.
What does Panera mean to customers? What does your business mean to your customers?
Writing a Business Value Proposition
This is why I constantly encourage my students and clients to write a Business Value Proposition, or BVP.
Sometimes I’ll ask a company:
“So… what does your business actually do?”
And I get headlights.
Deer-in-the-headlights headlights.
Years ago I had a client meeting in Phoenix.
Eight o’clock in the morning.
We closed the conference room door and I asked the marketing manager,
“So what’s your Business Value Proposition?”
She looked at me and said,
“I honestly have no idea. I’m quitting next week. I scheduled this meeting because I needed something to do.”
We thanked her for the honesty and immediately wondered if there was a Panera nearby where we could salvage the morning.
If somebody asks you what your company does…
Can you answer in one or two sentences?
If not, your company may be having its own existential crisis.
Question One: What Do You Sell?
Every business has a legal description.
An office.
A website.
Maybe a Meta advertising campaign.
But what do you actually sell?
Does Tesla sell cars?
Or does it sell electric transportation?
Innovation?
Status?
Does Panera sell bread?
Coffee?
Lunch?
A place to pull out your laptop?
Whatever you sell, it has to create value.
It has to relieve pain.
Or create pleasure.
Tylenol relieves pain.
Disney Cruises sell pleasure, memories, and family experiences.
So…
What do you actually sell?
Question Two: Who Wants It?
If your answer is,
“Everybody.”
No.
Just… no.
Nobody sells everything to everybody.
Panera once appealed to people who wanted something nicer than McDonald’s but quicker and cheaper than an artisan café where your sourdough starter has its own Instagram account, the wait was forty five minutes and the food was amazing. I once waited an hour in New York City to get the original Cronut. Hashtag very disappointed.
Back to Panera…
That customer knew exactly why Panera existed.
Today?
That’s become much fuzzier.
This is where Buyer Personas come in.
Who wants what you sell?
Think about:
- Demographics – permanent characteristics of your customers like age, sex, income level, geographic location.
- Psychographics – how they think who they are. Think people who love Disney vs. people who hate Disney. There is no “right” answer.
- Situational needs – think people who need to go on a family vacation because the kids are screaming, the husband is unhappy, the house is a wreck, and my marketing job is demanding I write a BVP when no one actually understands what the F we actually do I need a vacation!
Disney Cruises don’t simply target “people.”
They target families who love Disney and want memorable vacations with children.
And here’s a pro tip.
You can have more than one Buyer Persona.
Most successful companies do.
Question Three: Why Choose You?
This is your Unique Selling Proposition.
Why should anyone choose you instead of your competitors?
McDonald’s offers speed and low prices.
The artisan breakfast café offers craftsmanship and premium ingredients.
Panera…
Well…
That’s exactly the question Panera is struggling to answer.
Your USP is the reason customers choose you instead of somebody else.
Not because you have “great customer service.”
Everybody claims that.
What is genuinely different?
Sartre Returns
Now let’s bring Sartre back into the conversation.
Sartre argued that the central project of being human is creating meaning.
For one person, that might be raising children.
For another, writing music.
For another, practicing medicine.
For me?
If I’m lucky enough to reach old age, I suspect the thing I’ll value most isn’t YouTube views or consulting projects.
It will be my two daughters.
That’s probably the most meaningful project of my life.
Sartre also warned against mauvaise foi—”bad faith.”
Bad faith means lying to yourself.
Pretending you don’t have to answer life’s big questions.
You distract yourself.
You shop.
You work.
You scroll social media.
You watch the latest Netflix true crime series. Or, if you’re my girlfriend, you watch it. I am forced to force to watch it. And now I can’t sleep because apparently there are really terrible neighbors out there and boyfriends who are super psycho.
You tell yourself you’ll think about meaning later.
But Sartre’s point is that you don’t escape the choice.
Not choosing…
is still a choice.
That’s what he meant when he wrote:
“Man is condemned to be free.”
Businesses Are Condemned to Market
Businesses don’t get to avoid these questions either.
Every company has to answer:
- What do we sell?
- Who wants it?
- Why choose us?
If you don’t answer those questions…
The marketplace answers them for you.
Burger King forgot for a while. It went from “have it your way” to dirty stores, bad burgers, and filthy restrooms. Chick-fil-A ate its lunch by having a clear BVP – premium chicken, in a very clean store, for affluent but in-a-hurry consumers.
Kodak forgot.
Blockbuster forgot.
Panera appears to be wrestling with them right now.
The market is ruthless.
Customers don’t reward businesses simply because they exist.
They reward businesses whose purpose is obvious.
Final Thoughts
Here’s the connection between Sartre and marketing.
As a human being, you’re responsible for creating meaning in your own life.
As a business, you’re responsible for creating meaning in the marketplace.
Neither project is easy.
Neither can be avoided.
So don’t drift through life without asking what gives it meaning.
And don’t drift through business without knowing exactly what you sell, who wants it, and why customers should choose you.
Your life deserves an answer.
And so does your business.
This has been Marketing Philosophy.
I’m Jason McDonald. Thanks for watching.
