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When faced with a marketing challenge, different people turn to different solutions. The psychologists in the room might turn to motivational research. The social media gurus might suggest a monitoring platform. Those who are really with it, as Marshal McLuhan puts it in this interview, might turn to behavioral economics or game design. What we can learn from history and from current trends is that marketing is interdisciplinary by nature. Each of these fields holds valuable knowledge that marketers can apply, and yet none of them alone can answer all of a marketer's questions.

Because marketing should ultimately be concerned with so many aspects of the business, the profession brings a multitude of skill sets underneath its umbrella. There is very little that doesn't have a seat at the marketing table in some form or fashion. Renowned industrial designer Harmut Esslinger says, "If you don't understand business and the whole idea of economics, and ecology, and sociology, you cannot be a designer." But even design, which Harmut professes to encompass so much, is encompassed by the marketing agenda.

Even when individuals move towards a niche specialization, marketing as a profession continues to draw on an expanding set of knowledge. We need the psychologists. We need the sociologists. We need the technologists. We need the designers, and we need the behavioral economists. There are many seats at the marketing table, and we need them all to be filled.

Is it a given that a marketer is also a specialist in one of these areas? What skill set do you think is most important for marketers today and in the years to come? Let us know what you think in the comments or send us a tweet.

A little less than a year ago, Adam sent an e-mail out to the company with David Foster Wallace's 2005 Kenyon College commencement speech, This is Water. He titled the e-mail "Good Read for a Monday Morning." It's Friday, but I think this is a good read for any morning, or afternoon, or evening for that matter.

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the hell is water?"

Hat tip to Kottke and congratulations to the University of Texas (my home state) for acquiring Wallace's archives.

In recent years, between console wars and massive multiplayer online games (MMOs), the gaming industry has boomed. Consequently, the practice of game design has also attracted more attention. At the heart of game design is the art of interactive storytelling, and that art is also at the heart of several other practices. For marketers, there's much that can be learned from the study of game design theory, how it has been applied to other fields, and how it can be applied to ours.

In this excellent presentation at the DICE Summit this year, Jesse Schell examines the question of what happens when game design theory is applied to other fields of study. In an example of game design applied to schooling, Jesse presents fellow game designer and University of Indiana professor Lee Sheldon as a sort of case study:

School is a game right? You go, you get scored, you come out, there’s a leaderboard etc. He doesn't give out grades anymore; he gives out experience points, and you level up through the class. And so class attendance is up. Class participation is up. Homework is turned in often and better, because it's a better structure, a better system.

While I doubt many of our readers are professional game designers, or even teachers, many of you are marketers. So, how can we learn to implement these types of systems, these games, into our marketing strategies? What game design theory can we learn from before heedlessly introducing points, challenges, and contests into our tactics?

Early in their book Rules of Play (hat tip Big Spaceship), authors Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman describe  their three primary schemata for viewing the study of game design:

In many ways, these three overarching categories describe every marketing campaign. Each implementation lives within the context of logical limitations, social incentives and barriers, and the cultural identity and behaviors of those exposed to it.

There are clear cross-overs between marketing and game design, and behind each of these schemata are valuable lessons that will help marketers create better systems, systems that lend themselves to a better customer experience and influence customer behavior positively.

If you have any insights on game design theory, examples of great game design applied to marketing, or just want to leave some feedback, please leave a comment or send us a tweet.

In relation to my recent post, When Being Difficult Has Its Benefits, and in response to this interview with MetaFilter founder Matt Haughey (hat tip Noah Brier), I'd like to make the case that the future success of communities and content producers depends on raising the barriers to entry, not lowering them as many businesses have tried to do.

The biggest difference between communities offline and online is that the physical barriers to community have been shattered; you don't have to get out of your house to meet up, chat, or share. Likewise, gone are the days of changing out a CD or record, and the days of DVDs, books, newspapers, and magazines have all been numbered. Communities and content (which have increasingly become intertwined) are now easier to partake in than ever.

Witnessing the internet's growth from these lowered barriers, many business have chosen to build around the same concept. They assume, incorrectly, that because the internet's strength lies in convenience that their business model must also seek to eliminate all hints of inconvenience. In the same way that McDonald's approaches hamburgers, they don't completely ignore quality, but they relegate it to the back burner.

There's nothing inherently wrong with this approach, but it's bad timing. When the pendulum of industry swings in one direction, smart businesses anticipate the backlash and begin building in the opposite direction. Convenience online has been pioneered, but in its wake there's been left an opportunity to pursue quality -- an opportunity for content and communities formed around curation, insight, and analysis.

The benefits of low-barrier communities are overshadowed by a few large and prominent first movers like Facebook, and content frequently gets lost in the shuffle. By shuffle, I mean the 46 years worth of YouTube video watched on Facebook everyday, the sixty tweets sent out over Twitter every second, and the millions of blog posts that saturate the web.

In order for a community to thrive in the shadow of Facebook, the best option isn't to play Facebook's game (i.e. become a ubiquitous, convenient, social identity), but rather to build a high-quality, selective niche with targeted content. In short, the future success of content and community online hinges on sacrificing a little bit of convenience in order to enjoy richer, deeper experiences.

Typically, that convenience can be most effectively removed at the point of entry. (Once someone is a part of your community or takes the effort to create content, they rightfully expect to be catered to.) Raising the barriers to entry has several benefits.

By creating small obstacles, a community can effectively ward against spammers, passer-bys, and unsavory types. Moderation costs are reduced. Quality is increased, and respect for the community grows.

In an interview with journalist Suemedha Sood, Matt  Haughey, founder of the impressive community blog MetaFilter, says:

"[the signup fee] is mostly just putting a huge hurdle in front of having to deal with new users. ‘Cause it’s such a pain. The last ten years have shown that any time there’s press, like the New York Times writes something about us, 300 people sign up and then wreak havoc for a while, and then go away. [Without barriers to entry] it would just be a nightmare."

By increasing exclusivity, the perceived value of the community is also increased. It's long been known in commerce that a higher priced item is perceived as a higher quality item, simply because of its price. But whether you raise the price or create other barriers, increasing exclusivity creates value for people who choose to be members.

When you create exclusivity, you give people a reason to be proud of their membership; there's no pride in being part of a community that everyone is in. This pride is useful from a loyalty perspective -- people who are proud to be members of your community are more likely to pay for additional products -- but also from a social perspective: people are more likely to share content produced by a community that makes them proud.

Lastly, paywalls are a great source of revenue.

Like the food industry, there's plenty of room and reason for businesses to expand into more exclusive communities built around higher-quality, slower-produced content. While the tactical implementation of barriers to entry is very much up for debate; it seems inevitable that the future will see more communities and content producers succeed by raising barriers to entry. After all, the internet doesn't want to be free. It wants to get paid on Friday like everyone else.

Successful marketing today doesn't sell features; it sells benefits. This product will save you time. This product will save you money. This product is important for your identity. But successfully selling benefits requires more than cut-and-dry statements. Selling benefits involves making a magical promise (and then fulfilling it).

A great example of a brand that makes magical promises is Coke; they regularly promise happiness. But ethereal concepts (e.g. happiness, liberty, or financial freedom) are only effective when placed in an appropriate context. That's where polar bears, Santa Claus, and long sleepwalking journeys come in.

In fiction this technique of mixing the fantastical with the everyday is called magical realism, and the author most well-known for employing it is one of my favorites. Again and again Gabriel Garcia Marquez takes what is real and tangible and sprinkles in some magic; he is never satisfied with surface level appearances. Marquez's stories push the reader to reexamine the routine in light of grander, more extreme contexts, driving home the emotional truths and themes of the story in a profound way that has made him famous. His friend Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza says to him:

The way you treat reality in your books... has been called magical realism. I have the feeling your European readers are usually aware of the magic of your stories but fail to see the reality behind it...This is surely because their rationalism prevents them seeing that reality isn't limited to the price of tomatoes and eggs.

Likewise, when brands venture to make fantastical, complex, deep promises, consumers don't always see the reality. When that happens, they may put up psychological barriers against the brand. Seth Stevenson at Slate gives a great example using a surreal Levi's advertisement:

I've been in movie theaters when this ad played during previews, and the audience seemed transfixed—left in stunned silence when the ad faded out. But a friend says he saw it in a theater where, at the end, someone yelled, to much deflating laughter, "They're pants!"

The magic was spoiled.

But the risk of spoiled magic is a necessity. Levi's may not be associated with America to everyone who wears them, but to someone, somewhere, the distinctly American context, although extreme, communicated a powerful message. The same goes for Coke's promise of happiness, the feeling of fraternity that goes with grabbing some beers, and the drama behind fighting germs in commercials aimed at mothers. Not everyone buys into the magic, but some people do, and that makes it worth the risk.

Without a magical brand promise, products are nothing more than a list of features: some sugar water, a fermented beverage, or a chemical combination that kills germs. It's only when a brand promises a reality that is, as Mendoza says, "more than the price of tomatoes and eggs" and takes steps to support that promise that it has a chance at selling more than me-too products.