Our Story

During the fourth century BC, a rather thoughtful fellow named Aristotle came up with what I consider to be the foundation of marketing (and incidentally, the core principles of Melissa Barber Marketing).

He called it the Art of Rhetoric, or the art of persuasion.

It contains three key elements:

Ethos – the character or credibility of the presenter
Pathos – the emotions of the audience
Logos – the logical patterns of reasoning presented

2,000 years later, many consider it the most important work on persuasion ever written. Now that’s thought-provoking stuff.

In my mind, it comes down to ethics, passion and logic.

Ethos = Ethics. Be authentic. Be honest. Be true to yourself, your company and your values. This is your brand, your reputation, in its purest form. Are you credible?

Pathos = Passion. Be emotional! Show me. Don’t tell me the product benefits, tell me what I’ll get from it. Use colors and images that invoke feelings. I need to be emotionally attached.

Logos = Logic. Be logical. Be data-driven. Don’t jump on every bandwagon just because everyone else is doing it. Be rational, both in your company decisions and your appeal to your audience.

As a marketer, my goal is to persuade someone to act. No matter what the action itself may be – to buy, or support, or attend, or spread the word, or simply consider an idea – combining all three of Aristotle’s tenets together gets results.

Ethics, passion, logic.

And any words that still ring true two millennia later seem like a pretty solid foundation on which to build our company philosophy.