The Essence of Marketing, when dissected to its most basic element, is nothing more than storytelling. When telling a story you are sharing information that you believe will be entertaining, important, interesting or relevant to those for whom the story is targeted.
Storytellers know their audience and therefore are able to craft stories to capture their attention. If you carefully listen to storytellers you will find they adapt their story to fit their audience, by understanding the subtleties of who they are targeting.