The Tipping Point vs Jumping The Shark

The Tipping Point, and Jumping The Shark. Gotta love pop culture, don't you. Explaining why things turn good or go bad is the oldest thing in the book, but its often such an interesting topic. I find The Tipping Point to be Malcolm Gladwell's best work, a thought that I know many people share. Plus, who doesn't jokingly know the exact moment when their favorite tv show or movie series jumped the shark?

The interesting thing is that as different as these ideas are, they're both the same. They're both created to show the exact point when a specific instance happens. Yeah, Tipping Point is a good instance, and for the most part Jumping The Shark is a bad instance, but they really do come about the same way. Often times, these two things can be indentical, or very close in timing. Some people have said that they are one in the same - the instant something tips and becomes popular, it has jumped the shark, and will never be better than it was previous to that moment.

The thing that links these two ideas is unpredictability. The examples given in The Tipping Point are some of the most random things I have ever seen, and there is no way I could have, or just about anyone could have predicted it. Jumping The Shark is rather unpredictable as well. Maybe you can see it coming, for instance if your television show hired Ted McGinley, but I digress.

Unpredictability. Its the bane of many a businessman's existence. How else can you explain the Pet Rock? Beanie Babies? Real Men Of Genius? Reality Television? Its a wonder all people who work in marketing or advertising haven't gone insane by now!

To do this kind of thing, you need to thrive on the unpredictable. Take everything you do as the biggest damn thing in the world, because you know what? It might be. You won't know unless you go for it.

Thanks for reading!

Why'd you name it that?

What's in a name? Everything. But sometimes nothing.

Microsoft. Caesar's Palace. Escaping Mediocrity. Burger King. Staples.

Hear or see those names, you know what they are, you know their success, you know their quality. Imagine any of them with a different name. Would they be doing as well? Would they even be? What if Bill Gates was drunk one early day when microsoft was young, and he changed the name to something else....GatesCo for example.

Would that company be here today in the same position? Probably not. But maybe, it's possible that a product is good enough to overcome a bad name.

I've been thinking a lot about names. As things change at The Marketing Mark, the name could be one of them. Will that destroy what I have already built? I don't know. Will it propel me into new heights and beyond? I don't know.

Change is scary, isn't it. Hmmm...that sounds familiar...

How do you know when the fear is worth it?


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When To Change Everything Or Nothing

Sometimes a blog runs its course. Sometimes a marketing campaign runs too long. Occasionally an individual advertisement dissapears too quickly. We've all seen it happen, maybe even been part of it. Why does this happen?

Any ideas?

Dumb luck? Fickle audience? Bad product?

Probably, but generally no.

Much like in sales, everything has a break even point. Stop too early, and you miss it. Stop too late, and you run the risk of losing it all. Finding that point is a skill that not very many people have, and even those people aren't always perfect at finding it. For every time the break even point is hit, and you cut and run at the right time, there are untold numbers of people who stayed too long, or left too early.

The thing about it is, there's no generalization on how to find the spot. It could be years, months, weeks, days, hours, or any other time measurement. A blog could reach that point in three years, whereas a commercial may hit it within weeks or months, and that's with a quality product. The break even point for a subpar idea is likely to be even shorter.

What break even points have you come across?

Thanks for reading!!

Unbroken Chain

This post's title shares its title with a great song by Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead. Hopefully this post will not be as out there as a 69 Dark Star...

Anyhow - the title fits a lot of things, but being a marketing geek, I see an unbroken chain as a perfect metaphor for a company that has every department working all at once, and in the same mindset - and creating a product and marketing plan that blow the public away.


Something that enters pop culture, or alters the way future ads are done would be a great unbroken chain...comment about your favorites...

Thanks for reading!!


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Give Me Back My Five Bucks

Give Me Back My Five Bucks


I've just entered a contest to win either 1000 business cards or 500 brochures, the details are on this blog post on Give Me Back My Five Bucks, a great blog with some interesting readers.

You readers of mine don't actually get to help me win the contest, but I'll bet any one of you wouldn't mind winning, either. Go on over and check out the contest....tell them I sent you. :)

Here Comes The Money

I belong to a networking group of unemployed folks, and every week, we have a speaker come in and talk about whatever it is they do, or something we can do to help ourselves, etc. For instance, recently we had a guy from our local chamber of commerce come in and talk about starting small businesses, an account executive from an employment placement agency, and things like that. Generally, they have good advice, because they have been able to do something that those of us in the group are in, and find a job that the economy didn't eliminate.

There's a great mix of people, some old, some young, some with experiences you wouldn't believe, and some with none whatsoever. I've been noticing one particular attendee asks every presenter about how much they make, or what the money is like in their particular industry. This person has also been somewhat of a career hopper, not suprisingly.

I think that person is going about it all wrong. Even in today's economy, don't do something just because it's where the money is. Don't do something you don't know how to do, or something that would compromise you just because its where the money is.

Its not just advice for the unemployed, either. Following the money is not a good way to do things. Freelancers and Consultants know this firsthand. Just because someone offers you a project that's going to give you a lot of money, doesn't mean you should take it. If you don't know how to do it, or can't do it, because of time or whatever, in the end, you won't get the money anyways, because you will more than likely have to halfass it just because you need to finish it. Don't do it that way. Take the stuff that comes along that makes sense for you to take. Things may get a little tight in the meantime, but in the long run, it will be worth it.

Thanks for reading...

Consumer Reaction

So.

I just saw the new commercial starring the Sham-Wow guy. The slap-chop.

I know the goal in advertising and marketing is to get a reaction from the customer and get them to remember your product. Sometimes it does seem like we remember the stupid commercials more than good ones, though. Commercials by their mere existance are annoying and interrupting what we tuned in for, but why is it that purposely annoying commercials get more of a reaction from consumers?

Although, if the commercial is so horrible that so many people remember how horrible it was and what product it was for...was it really a horrible commercial?

Thanks for reading...

The Skill Of Luck

Do you think that every successful marketing or advertising campaign was the result of skill?

I don't. It's not possible.

Luck is a huge factor. HUGE. As an example, the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie...promotion went fine for months, and was relatively quiet...then they got lucky, and one town thought their blinking ads were bombs...and then EVERYONE knew about it.

Viral marketing...completely based on luck. Well, maybe not completely. Think about it. How stupid was Subservient Chicken? Completely. But by luck or by some other random factor, it caught on.

Got Milk? Lucky again. In the beginning it failed, miserably. But one endorser caught on, and they're still going today.

Luck is a huge factor in everything. Can you learn to be lucky? No. You can learn all kinds of things, but you cannot learn luck.

Think about your favorite commercial, or advertisement. Then take a moment and ask yourself if you honestly think that everybody that worked on it thought it was a good idea.

Thanks for reading...