In my new favorite movie, POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold,  filmmaker Morgan Spurlock goes into a meeting to pitch his movie to Ban Deodorant. Apparently, Ban is not a top-tier deodorant, and the company is pretty interested in alternative ways of expanding their presence, thus the meeting with Spurlock.

During the pitch, Morgan Spurlock asks the Ban people to describe their product. There is a long moment of silence that follows, and then the marketing people put their thinking caps on.   The audience laughed at this interval because of how ridiculous the scene was–and yet, I bet it plays out every day with businesses of every size, everywhere.

You must be able to answer this question: what is your product/service and what makes it different from any other product/service in the category.

If you can’t describe your product/service and its attributes, you are in deep trouble. If you don’t do any other marketing, you must work on that description and pound it in to your marketing and salespeople’s heads. Can you imagine a Coca Cola salesperson being asked to describe his/her product and not being able to do so? All he/she has to say is “Coke is it! ” (Just kidding, but they would probably say something to the effect that Coke is one of the world’s top selling soft drinks, and it is a carbonated, sugar loaded “delight.”)

Perhaps if you studied politics, like I did, you think faction is a party or group that is usually causing some trouble. However, if you watch Morgan Spurlock’s The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, you will learn that a “faction” is a combination of the words fact and fiction. Meaning that it is neither fact nor fiction. Perhaps it is a fictionalized fact, or fact-based fiction. Sounds like many of the memoirs that are making the rounds these days.

The Greatest Movie Ever Sold is a faction, and it is a must-watch movie if you are even remotely interested in marketing. Spurlock, who is previously known for his documentary Super Size Me, has blown open the world of product placement and movie funding.

This movie is funny and it is pure genius. To see Spurlock go pitch this movie, about product placement and movie funding, to people in marketing is just about as humorous as any parody can be. But what is truly genius, is that it is real. This is how things get done in the world of marketing. Celebrity endorsements are real. Advertisers are looking for new ways to reach more audiences. And everything is for sale.

I can’t do this movie justice here. There was too much stuff that struck a chord, from creating a pitch, to finding the brand personality, to how to market a movie.

Here’s a the official trailer:

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