There's a dialogue going on surrounding Seth Godin's recent blog post Cultural Wisdom. On Digg, Stefan Suarez added his blog post that disagreed...Cheesy Still Sells.

Seth admonishes companies to pay attention to the Cultural Wisdom of the right attire, right choice of words, and the right level of Sophistication.

Stefan thinks that numbers speak for themselves - Cheesy still sells - and the numbers buyin Cheesy are far larger than those Sophisticated types.

They're both right. But the critical difference is the CUSTOMER - what they're buying.

The issue is one of symmetry - are you aligning your methodology to your buying market?

The number of ginsu knives sold to the "Sophisticated" crowd are probably pretty small....

The likelihood of BMW doing a Cheesy Infomercial is equally small...

If you're marketing to the great masses - then Cheesy works.

If you're a Marketing guru talking to "C-level" exec's, I suggest you polish your Ferragamos and get pitch perfect on your ROI.

Many of my clients are technology companies selling services and products to businesses. Time and again I've helped them polish their pitch by taking out the techno jargon they define themselves by and focus on the business benefits their offering delivers. That's Sophistication. And it's not about being snooty or snobbish. On the contrary, it is opening the door to a dialogue based on the CUSTOMER's need, not on the technical slickness of the product being pitched.

Sure you can - and will - have a super duper highly acronym laden follow-up meeting with the guys in the basement, but at some time you'll have to sell his boss...

(Sidenote: even Cheesy has its own version of Sophistication - and if not done right falls as flat as open toed, High Heeled Manolos at a Rodeo.)