Book Review: This is Marketing by Seth Godin - Why Every Marketer Needs to Rethink What They’re Really Selling

Seth Godin’s This Is Marketing isn’t a manual about ad budgets or social media hacks. It’s a guide to how humans think, dream, and connect and a reminder that good marketing doesn’t start with selling, it starts with helping.

From the first chapter, Godin flips the idea of marketing on its head: marketing, he says, creates culture. It’s not selfish manipulation, it’s a generous act that helps others become who they seek to become. This is a theme that threads through the entire book: that marketers exist to make change happen.

One of the strongest ideas from Godin’s writing is that culture beats strategy so much that culture is strategy. He explains that great marketers don’t chase shortcuts like ad spend or viral tricks, instead, they study how humans dream, decide, and act.

The five steps of marketing he outlines are refreshingly simple yet profound:

1. Make something worth making, with a story worth telling.

2. Build it for a small group who will deeply care.

3. Tell a story that matches the consumers worldview.

4. Spread the word.

5. Show up again and again until trust is built.

   
   

It’s this fifth step that most people skip, but it’s also where culture is shaped.

Godin makes it clear that people don’t buy products, they buy feelings. They buy the way something makes them feel about themselves. Whether it’s a skincare line, or a local coffee shop, what we’re really selling is belonging, confidence, or aspiration.

One quote that stuck with me and one that Godin references a lot throughout the entirety of the book is “People like us do things like this.”

This single sentence captures the essence of marketing as a cultural act. People don’t want to stand out; they want to fit in with their tribe. Marketers who understand this can shape communities, not just campaigns.

Instead of chasing mass appeal, Godin urges marketers to think smaller. “If you can’t succeed in the small,” he says, “why do you believe you will succeed in the large?”

By focusing on the smallest viable market, you can create something so personal and specific that it truly resonates and those early believers will spread your story for you. That’s how movements begin.

Godin also explores tension, the emotional friction that pushes people to act. Whether it’s the fear of missing out, the anxiety of change, or the desire for status, tension is what moves markets.

He uses fascinating examples, like the Maasai warriors who once killed lions to prove their bravery. Through smart storytelling, conservationists helped shift that belief system which reframes bravery as saving lions instead. The result? The same cultural status, but a new, life-changing behaviour. That’s the power of marketing done right.

Final thoughts

This Is Marketing isn’t about learning a new tactic, it’s about unlearning everything you thought marketing was. It’s a reminder that our job as marketers isn’t to shout the loudest, it’s to see people. To understand their fears, dreams, and desires.

If you work in marketing, brand management, or even entrepreneurship, this book will completely reframe how you think about your work.

As Godin puts it “Marketing isn’t about the stuff you make, but about the stories you tell and the change you make.”