Very Good is Bad -- How to Market When There's Too Much Choice
One of the older TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design conferences) talks worth listening to is by Seth Godin describing the new way marketing works.
It's interesting to think about Seth's ideas. How can very good be bad? The trouble with very good is that it's not remarkable enough and people don't talk about it. They tune it out.
We need to reach the people in our audience that are truly passionate about a particular service or "the library" so they will spread the word. How well are we doing in libraries at marketing to the people with "otaku", the people that passionate about what we do? Do we take them for granted? Do we see marketing to them as preferential treatment? Should we be thinking of them as the early adopters -- the sneezers that spread the word? Are we still marketing to the middle? According to Seth, we need to look at the people with "otaku" that will spread (recommend) the ideas to others.
I still recall when many of my staff were concerned about food and food wrappers in the library and the mess and damage to books. We brainstormed ideas about what to do from being tougher about enforcing rules about food and drink, to signage etc. In the end, we decided to focus on raising awareness and asked a talented artist on our staff to create some paper mache sculpture of a bug to be part of a display. The Library is not invested with bugs or other wildlife but we wanted to draw attention to fact that it could attract pests and the damage that was occurring to books.
I was hoping for one cockroach about 3 feet high. I was astonished to see the exhibit go up with 5 very large bugs -- two well over 6 feet tall. One of the cockroaches was looking up delicacies in the OPAC and another two bugs were ordering off the rare book menus. We also had a display of the damaged books - smashed banana, spilled coffee etc. It was the sculptures of the cockroaches that really grabbed people's attention. They were extra ordinary. We didn't expect media coverage but we received that as well. And being at an University our bugs were inspected thoroughly from tip to toe as to whether they were anatomically correct and the fact that they were was duly noted.
We didn't intent to be so remarkable, but we were and people noticed.
Here are a few quotes from Seth's talk:
We're in a century of idea diffusion.
"Can you get your idea to spread or not? And I think that the way you're going to get what your want or cause the change that you want to change, to happen, is you're going to figure out how to get your ideas to spread."
Consumers have way more choices and too little time, so we ignore stuff. Advertising is like cows. We ignore it, It's just a cow. Unless the cow was purple then we would stop.
No matter business you're in, you're in the fashion business now. [my emphasis] We're not used to thinking this.
Figure out what people really want and give it to them.
Seth offers two quick rules to follow:
1. Design is free when you get to scale.
2. The riskiest thing you can do now, is be safe.
Proctor & Gamble knows this. The whole model of Proctor & Gamble is all about "average products for average people". That's risky. The safe thing to do now is to be at the fringes.
One of the worst things you can do is being very good.
And being very good is boring. Very good is average. It doesn't matter whether you're making a record album or you're an architect or you have a track on sociology. If it's very good it's not going to work. No one is going to notice it.
Some libraries certainly are finding ways to be remarkable by are figuring out what their users really want and are giving it them. They know that their success depends on continuously adapting what we do to be relevant and fresh.
Just recently at the Computers in Libraries 2007 conference, I was lucky enough to be on the panel of judges for the first InfoTubey's Awards recognizing libraries using video to promote their library by posting interesting and engaging video clips to YouTube to reach their audience viraly. This certainly isn't "safe" and some of it's "very good" in the sense of high quality, high cost video production, but it's fresh, engaging and interesting.
Related Links:
- The Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godin
- Unleashing the Ideavirus by Seth Godin
- Free Prize Inside!: The Next Big Marketing Idea by Seth Godin
Tags: cil2007 | ideavirus | library | marketing | Seth Godin
