Marketing, or bringing something to market. This idea has history.
Once it involved a long journey. One that began with loading a cart with everything you had been able to produce over a certain time frame.
Perhaps, you had grown potatoes and picked them out of the ground, placed them in a container so they could be put on the cart.
Perhaps, you had chickens, so you were bringing eggs. Whatever it was, you had worked to produce it, or waited for it grow, or collected it from the animals you had fed and kept.
The part before bringing something to market took time too. Before you left, you might have kissed your wife, because at this time, it was more likely a man who led the cart, or got onto the cart, if he was lucky.
Notice the difference. Either he led the cart, or he got on the cart. One required a lot more effort than the other, but neither was without physical exertion.
I live in a country village, and it takes me ten minutes to drive from my village to the next nearest one. But in this remembering of times gone by, the man would have a much longer journey ahead if the nearest village was the one who held the market on the day he travelled.
While he travelled, his wife would look after the homestead. This was not a passive role. Both worked together in their own way to make life bearable.
A trip to market meant that this family had produced more than they needed themselves. They had surplus to sell.
The man leading the cart, or riding it, now had to traverse roads he knew well. This was not a one and done kind of life.
It would have been early when he set out. He’d have wanted to get to the market before it was fully set up. But this didn’t mean he raced there. The roads wouldn’t have been kind to that way of thinking.
I imagine him setting off in the dark when the birds were beginning to echo in the dawn. Light would adjust to the sun’s rising as he made his way, once again, to the market.
Instead of ten minutes, his journey may have been an hour or two depending on the conditions. If it had rained the previous night, the journey would be slower, take more effort and require more care.
As he got closer to his destination, he would see other people arriving. Some with carts, others without, but all bringing goods that they had laboured on to the market.
You might imagine him saluting to the faces he knew.
Voices would replace the bird song from awareness. An energy of community would replace the isolation of the journey. This was a coming together. A shared moment, as each person found their pitch from which to sell.
It is likely that where your pitch landed had more to do with the direction you had arrived from. A system of knowing working well because everyone knew their place.
At this time, the man may have begun conversations, ones that caught him up on the lives of friends and family. The news of others.
Perhaps, there would have been some exchanges too. A few eggs for some green cabbages. A letter from his wife given to her sister’s husband. Men talking in person, sisters communicating through letters. And if letters weren’t exchanged, words remembered and spoken were.
Contrast that to today and what marketing now means.
This piece is also available as a spoken reading below.