The problem is that malicious psychology has become so prevalent, that any sort of marketing formula that isn't direct honesty is parsed as manipulation. (And for good reason -- the vast majority of the time, it is.)

I don't care that your product is going to make me the reborn Buddha, because if you lead with that there's an overwhelming likelihood that your product doesn't stand on its merits and there is no underlying value. Blame the other marketers for spoiling the game if you want, but I think marketing is fundamentally a business mistake in that it makes you an adversary of your customers, not a partner. It's based on attacking customers with weaponized psychology. That's the premise of the modern field, and there's no escaping that.

If you had a product that I actually needed and provided value, you could just tell me what it was. It should be straightforward how that addresses my needs -- or it likely doesn't.

>So say you're making software for car washes. Don't lead with the fact that you make software. Instead, show the benefit by saying something like "Book 73% more car washes" and then say "Car wash booking software to increase revenue."

That still actually tells me what the product is, which is way more than we keep seeing for all these start-ups, open source software etc, which seem to revolve around hippie meaningless B.S. that doesn't provide any value proposition up front.

Agreed - my point was in reference to the OP who wrote: "Meanwhile, in marketing school, there's a teacher writing on a whiteboard: "Never ever tell anyone what your company does."

Any decent marketer, imho, would argue against not telling people what your company does (it's usually the CEO making that case) - the good marketer just moves the "what you do" to behind a value/benefit.

> but if that is all you say, then it won't be clear how you do that, or how you're different from, say, a UI optimization tool which also improves end-user experience.

In this example, what if the company isn't any different? The marketer has to find a way to hide the fact that the company they've been hired to promote is not actually that innovative. An inferior product can still be a success if the right combination of hype, timing and smart promotion is combined.

The company doesn't have to be different, but you are right that if they articulate the value the tool/software brings better than the other guy, they may win the day.

What you're describing is fast becoming a reality for most software businesses imho - the days of feature differentiation are rapidly declining.