Coming from a more technical background, I for a long time had a strong distrust, even contempt, for marketing and sales, regarding it as mostly cheating and lies. This view I think is fairly common, and while that perspective has some merit, there is a fair bit more to marketing, something which learning ”Inbound”, reminded me of: Good marketing can, and should, be honest and true, as this is necessary for longterm relationships, and since lack thereof will cause discontent and hurt, damaging the same.
As examples of ”honest” and extremely strong brands with high credibility, these knife brands are high up on my list of favorites. The American ESEE and the Swedish Morakniv. The ESEE knife comes in at a hefty price tag of about 190USD, the Morakniv knife at a modest 19USD (although my knife here is vintage, and about 70 years old).
Both are highly respected, regarded as fantastic knives of great quality and design, perfectly suited for their specific uses, which are perfectly clear to the absolute majority of the users. Where there is discontent, it is usually due to culturally-based misconceptions about purpose.
Honest and true marketing is strong and lasting.