Seth Godin on sliced bread

Seth Godin points out in this awesome presentation that marketing to the masses today is not only risky- but really pointless.

He tends toward pushing a kind of evangelistic marketing that gets early adopters to speak out about new products and make them cool.

His ideas are rooted- sure in marketing and advertising- but in social science as well- more specifically British Social Studies from the early eighties.

What researchers discovered mostly by studying pop music is that music, culture and technology are adopted by marginalized groups who then re-appropriate the content and create they're own unique blend or uses.

This marginalized new content is then sucked into the main stream as culturally innovative.

There are so many examples: Rap and Hip Hop to Punk- Internet- finally new media platforms.

Should marketers try to get the main stream to download feature films????????

Complete waste of time - the idea is to convince early adopters that this technology speaks directly to them and ONLY them- then you have something.

The early adopters are the trend setters - the brand makers!!!!!!!!!!!!! Forget your high paid agency....

I really enjoy Seth Godin, please check out his books.

Finally, notice the super clean powerpoint and how effective it was???!!!???

To learn how to make powerpoints like that please check out one of my favorites: http://www.presentationzen.com

While you're at it... check out my favorite radio/podcast:
http://www.cbc.ca/ageofpersuasion with Terry O'Reilly


l8r