Demarketing

Definition

Intentionally discouraging certain customers from using your product—the anti-marketing move deployed when you're overwhelmed or want to look edgy.

Example Usage

We're demarketing to teenagers because our product is overloaded; let's focus on affluent 35-45 year-olds who pay more anyway.

Origin

Marketing theory from the 1970s, popularized in recent sustainability discussions

Fun Fact

Tesla practices demarketing by ignoring traditional ads entirely, which somehow made them more desirable

Source: Marketing strategy and positioning

Related Terms

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private marketplace

An invitation-only programmatic auction where premium publishers offer inventory to selected buyers at negotiated floors. The velvet rope section of the ad exchange nightclub.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Intermediate

lookalike

In digital advertising, an audience segment created by finding people who resemble your existing customers like some kind of algorithmic clone army. It's Facebook's way of saying "we found more people just as gullible as your current buyers." Marketers love these because stalking one customer base apparently wasn't enough.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Advanced

marketing attribution

The practice of determining which touchpoints deserve credit for a conversion, attempting to solve marketing's eternal question: 'Which half of my advertising is working?' Spoiler: there are no perfect answers.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Intermediate

customer journey mapping

Creating elaborate diagrams showing every touchpoint a customer encounters with your brand, from blissful ignorance to purchase and beyond. It's like stalking, but with Post-it notes and the pretense of empathy.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Beginner

advertorial

An advertisement disguised as editorial content, wearing a journalistic trench coat to sneak past readers' skepticism. The chameleon of marketing that makes disclosure labels work overtime.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Advanced

ad exchange

A digital marketplace where publishers and advertisers buy and sell ad inventory in real-time through automated auctions. Imagine the New York Stock Exchange, but instead of trading equity in companies, you're trading the privilege of annoying someone with banner ads.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

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See “Demarketing” in Corporate Speak, Gen-Z Slang, Pirate Speak, and more.

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