You’re Doing It Wrong: A Field Guide to Marketing’s Favorite Lie

Once again, I’ve been told that I am doing something wrong. Now, honestly, this isn’t a new thing for me; I do things wrong all the time. I’m the champ of wrong; I’m the camp champ of wrong. So, discovering I’m doing something wrong isn’t new; as a matter of fact, I’ve actually written a blog about it. So, I am well aware that I live in the land of doing it wrong, my own personal fiefdom, as t’were. Wrong is my wheelhouse, my home ground, my hood. No, that’s wrong; I’m not a hood dweller. See, right there, I was wrong.

In the article linked above, I talk about how marketers and companies like these you’re doing it wrong pieces because it keeps us in fear and keeps us coming back to them to get it right. It’s cruel, despotic, underhanded; in short, it’s advertising, so how low is low? Anyway, as today is the start of my weekend, I decided to address this again because on my newsfeed today I was confronted with this: “Brushing your teeth? You’ve been doing it wrong your whole life.” I didn’t read the article because, well, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I just didn’t want to learn this morning that something as simple as brushing my teeth has been done wrong my whole life.

Now, I could contest that with, well, there was a part of my life when I didn’t have teeth, so, meh. Or, there was a time in my life when drinking took precedence over all things mortal and I rarely, if ever, brushed my teeth. So, I couldn’t have been doing it wrong all my life because there were parts of my life, great swaths of time in my life when I didn’t do it at all. So, put that in your brand profile and file it under, “so there.”

These lists are annoying at the very least and frenzy-causing at best. But they’re too obvious. Let’s be honest, does anyone really open an English Muffin wrong? Do the English have a muffin board that traverses the world, spying through kitchen windows in early morning light, seeking muffin defilers, the breakfast deviants who need to be taught a valuable muffin lesson? I don’t think so. So, telling me that I’m opening an English muffin wrong is pointless. It’s usually very early in the morning when I’m muffining, operating sans coffee, thick crumbles on my eyelids; it’s a miracle I don’t put my hand into the toaster instead of the muffin of English origin.

It’s too early, and it’s too rudimentary. We all open a muffin, and I swear to all that’s holy, and under contract with DreamWorks, there is no right way to open an English muffin. That holds true for brushing my teeth, petting my dog, cooking a hard-boiled egg, or filling my dishwasher. Some things we do so often that they are part of our kinesthetic memory.

For those unfamiliar with the term: Kinesthetic memory is the ability of the body to record, remember, and repeat physical movements without conscious thought. We all experience this, except Steve Bladdermeir in Oswego, New York. See, Oswego, New York, is famously known for a local claim that it once held a Guinness World Record for having the most bars per square mile (or per capita) in America. Steve helped prove this fact, and because of it, he now has zero memory of anything. Nothing. This includes kinesthetic memory as well as other forms of memory, including the primary types: visual, auditory, and sensory-based systems like iconic and echoic memory. Steve ain’t got none of that left. But, aside from this one outlier, we all have kinesthetic memory. So our bodies are doing these simple things the way they’ve been taught. And our bodies have been doing these simple things so long that we don’t even have to think about them. The problem with these “You’re Doing It Wrong” articles is that they make us think about things we don’t need to, and then we mess it up. This is called the Centipede Effect. The name comes from an old poem in which a toad asks a centipede which leg goes after which, confusing the centipede so much that it cannot walk anymore. This is very real. This happened to me when I read the You’re Opening an English Muffin Wrong article. After I read it, I was so freaked out that when I tried to open an English muffin, I accidentally opened the Magna Carta instead, which sent me into the space/time continuum where I reversed the document, restarted the First Baron’s War, and sent England into a massive existential crisis. Also, I had no peanut butter for my muffin. Sigh.

The point is that your articles are too mundane, and you should focus on bigger issues. Pinpoint where people are doing things wrong that they never even thought of, and write articles about those things.

DISCLAIMER: nothing of what follows is advisable, normal, or even slightly smart. If you wish to remain out of jail and free of gunshot wounds and becoming a societal pariah, do not follow any of this advice and view it merely for entertainment purposes. There, I’ve disclaimed.

You’re Doing (Blank) Wrong

Let’s start with a simple one.

You’re Paying Your Rent All Wrong

If you’re taking money out of an account and sending it to your landlord once a month, you’re doing it wrong.

The best way to handle this is not to pay your rent at all. Bar the doors and windows and claim squatters’ rights. You see, squatters have the legal right to due process, meaning property owners cannot kick them out, change the locks, or shut off utilities without going through a formal court eviction. Most people don’t have time for this, and it is a huge pain in the ass.

Also of note, as a squatter, if you establish presence, like receiving mail, the cops will treat this as a civil property dispute rather than a criminal trespassing case. This means it’s you and your landlord, no cops involved. No shootout on the eleven o’clock news.

Skip the rent paying and just dig in, clutching your copy of the squatters’ legal rights. And hey, all the money you save on rent, you can use to get a really good lawyer. ‘Cause you’re gonna need it.

You’re Taking a Bath Wrong

You come home, tired and irritated from work; you need to relax, so you draw a nice hot bath. You light candles, drop in a bath bomb, and then step into the tub, sink down, and you feel the tension of the day melt away. Right?

Wrong, very wrong. See, your tension will stay with you as long as you keep thinking about everything you need to accomplish, and that list keeps you from true relaxation.

Here’s what you do: draw the bath, but add laundry detergent. Then put on as many clothes as you can; this way, while you bathe, you’re also washing your clothes. Wanna be even more efficient? Bring the dirty dishes in the tub with you. Now, you’re relaxin’, washing clothes, and doing dishes. You’re taking care of your entire to-do list while you relax in a nice warm bath.

You’re welcome.

You’re Terrorizing the Neighborhood Wrong

This is for the old timers in the crowd. You’re making the neighborhood kids afraid, causing them angst, keeping them off your lawn, but you’re doing it all wrong.

This one is a lack of coverage. Let me explain.

You’re doing well with the shouting and the name-calling and the waving of the cane; that’s fine, you’ve got that part down, but it could be more. What you need is an exact replica of your front porch, motorized. This way, the entire neighborhood is your lawn, and if the kids fly away from your house on their bikes and Big Wheels, you can follow and keep the abuse going.

The beauty of this idea is that you don’t have to stay in your ‘hood. Drive to Safeway or Rite Aid; your porch now extends to the frozen food section and the meat cases. You can terrorize in comfort with your mobile porch. Your reign of terror can now be boundless and twenty-four hours a day! Now you can abuse the kids and say, “Anytime, I’ll leave the light on.”

You’re Raising Your Kids Wrong

This one is simple.

After your child is born, love them, feed them, play with them, cuddle them, take them places, and do all that until they take their first step. When they do, ship them off to military school immediately.

Done.

You’re Using the Gelatinous Junk That Surrounds a Canned Ham Wrong

The truth here is, if you’re using this stuff at all, you’re wrong. I don’t know what that is and I don’t want to know. Neither do you; it’s gross and, at times, frightening. Don’t use it, and if you are, stop; it’s wrong, so just cut it out.

You’re Using Public Transportation Wrong

Ah, the joy and wonder of owning a car. You have a certain amount of privacy and freedom to go wherever you want, whenever you want. Those aren’t features of public transportation. But that’s where you’re wrong.

When you get on the bus, tell the driver exactly where you want to go. Now, he’ll push back, tell you you’re on the wrong bus, just nod, and this is where you have to do a little work. Wait to respond until after he’s started the bus, then start screaming where you need to go. Threaten him with plagues of frogs and farts. Keep screaming; eventually the other passengers will get tired, and they will tell the driver to do what you say.

With that out of the way, you can now sit and enjoy the breakfast sandwich or Tupperware container of fish you brought with you. As you feast, make sure you play the radio really loud and sing along. When you arrive where you want to be, not where the bus is supposed to take you, thank the driver, tell him or her they’re good people, and say, “We’ll do it again tomorrow.”

And finally…

You’re Reading These “You’re Doing It Wrong” Articles Wrong

Because we live in an age of screens, you probably encounter these types of articles while on yours. That’s fine, but it’s wrong. Here’s what you need to do.

Pull up the article on your screen, then print it. Take the hard copy and drop it in a parking lot. Next, douse it with gasoline, lighter fluid, vodka, or your accelerant of choice. Next, light a match, an oily rag, or your Zippo — you can’t use a disposable lighter because you need to have your hands on one of those to keep it lit. Once you’ve achieved fire, drop said fire on the document and sit down. Then take out the hot dog pierced with a stick you always carry, and slow-roast it over the flaming article.

When the article is done, nothing left but wisps of charcoal, sweep it into a bag and throw it away. You’re done, and… you’re welcome.

The Takeaway

There’s probably a better way to do almost everything. Fine. That doesn’t mean I need to know about it. At some point, improvement stops being useful and starts becoming an accusation. Suddenly, perfectly ordinary things we’ve managed to accomplish without incident require correction, instruction, and apparently an article explaining where we went so terribly wrong.

Good for whoever figured out the better way. I’m sticking with mine.

There’s a peculiar kind of marketing that begins by making you suspicious of your own competence. You thought you knew how to brush your teeth? Fool. You thought you could open an English muffin without professional guidance? Idiot. You’ve been bathing incorrectly, your dishwasher is laughing at you, and somewhere a hard-boiled egg is quietly judging your technique. The solution, conveniently enough, is always waiting on the other side of the headline.

That’s the trick. Create a problem where none existed, make people feel slightly inadequate, then offer them the answer. It works because uncertainty gets our attention. Once somebody tells us we’re doing something wrong, there’s a little part of the brain that needs to know exactly how wrong we are. Marketers have understood that impulse for a very long time, and now the internet has given them an unlimited supply of English muffins with which to exploit it.

At ThoughtLab, we spend a lot of time thinking about how brands get attention, and fear is certainly one way to do it. So is insecurity. So is convincing people that the perfectly functional way they’ve been doing something for thirty years has suddenly become a threat to themselves, their families, and possibly Western civilization. But getting someone’s attention and earning it aren’t the same thing.

Good marketing doesn’t always need to tell people they’re wrong. Sometimes it can make them curious. It can entertain them. It can show them something genuinely useful or introduce an idea they hadn’t considered. It can even trust them enough to assume they’re reasonably competent human beings who have somehow survived this long without knowing the federally approved method for opening an English muffin.

So brush your teeth however you brush them. Load the dishwasher the way you’ve always loaded it. Take a bath without doing laundry in it. Pay your rent, please, despite anything you may have read earlier in this article.

And tomorrow morning, if a headline tells you that you’ve been making coffee wrong your entire life, close the article and make your coffee.

You’re doing fine.