Seth’s Blog: “What Every Mass Marketer Needs to Learn from Groucho Marx”
January 6, 2010 by Mike Troiano · View Comments
Great piece from Seth Godin on the importance of adapting to a changing context…
Perhaps the most plaintive complaint I hear from organizations goes something like this, “We worked really hard to get very good at xyz. We’re well regarded, we’re talented and now, all the market cares about is price. How can we get large groups of people to value our craft and buy from us again?”
Apparently, the bulk of your market no longer wants to buy your top of the line furniture, lawn care services, accounting services, tailoring services, consulting… all they want is the cheapest. The masses don’t want a better PC laptop. They just want the one with the right specs at the right price. It’s not because people are selfish (though they are) or shortsighted (though they are). It’s because in this market, right now, they’re not listening. They’ve been seduced into believing that all options are the same, and they’re only seeing price. In terms of educating the masses to differentiate yourself, the market is broken.
Fixing this is almost always a losing battle. Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean the market cares any longer.
The Marx Brothers were great at vaudeville. Live comedy in a theatre. And then the market for vaudeville was killed by the movies. Groucho didn’t complain about this or argue that people should respect the hard work he and his brothers had put in. No, they went into the movies.
Then the market for movies like the Marx Brothers were making dried up. Groucho didn’t start trying to fix the market. Instead, he saw a new medium and went there. His TV work was among his best (and certainly most lucrative).
It’s extremely difficult to repair the market.
It’s a lot easier to find a market that will respect and pay for the work you can do. Technology companies have been running this race for years. Now, all of us must.
If Wal-Mart or some cultural shift has turned what you do into a commodity, don’t argue. Find a new place before the competition does. It’s not easy or fair, but it’s true. You bet your life.
[Please note that nothing I wrote above applies to niche businesses. In fact, exactly the opposite does. You can make a good living selling bespoke PC laptops or doing vaudeville today, even though the mass of the market couldn't care a bit. How he got in my pajamas, I'll never know...]
Decide what your brand means, or someone else will.
September 23, 2009 by Mike Troiano · View Comments
Uber-blogger Seth Godin just announced the launch of Brands In Public, which I find fascinating on several levels.
As Seth put it:
“Squidoo has built several hundred pages, each one about a major brand. (Here are some examples). More are on the way. We’ll keep going until we have thousands of important brands, each on its own page (and we’ll happily add one for you if you like). Each page collects tweets, blog posts, news stories, images, videos and comments about a brand. All of these feeds are algorithmic… the good and the bad show up, all collated and easy to find.
Of course, these comments and conversations are already going on, all over the web. What we’ve done is bring them together in one place. And then we’ve made it easy for the brand to chime in.
If your brand wants to be in charge of developing this page, it will cost you $400 a month. And once you take the page over, the left hand column belongs to you. You can post responses, highlight blog posts, run contests or quizzes. You can publicly have your say right next to the constant stream of information about your brand (information that’s currently all over the web—and information you can’t “take down” or censor). You can respond, lead and organize. If a crisis hits, your page will be there, ready for you to speak up. If your fans are delighted, your page makes it easy for them to chime in and speak up on sites around the web.”
Didn’t catch that? Allow me to translate:
Dear BMW Brand Manager: We know you’re a little skittish about this whole social media thing, so we took the liberty of taking all that stuff you’re terrified of, the stuff that’s been spread all over the Internet by your most ardent fans and detractors, and put it all in one place where everyone can see it. Oh and PS, you’re more than welcome to comment on it, so long as you pay a small fee to us, da management.
Wow.
Look folks… the genie is out of the bottle. The conversation about you, your brand, your customer service, whatever, is already out there and happening online. It’s time to deal. It’s time to get involved, set the record straight where you can, and learn from the mistakes you make where you cannot.
If this doesn’t get you there, just wait until Seth and co. stop by to ask you to buy some “insurance,” so “nuthin’ bad happens.” Seems to me it’d be better to get involved now, so at least you know what’s being said.
Either that or get a doberman.
