Despite Seth Godin’s TED talk revolving around marketing, its lessons can be applied to the everyday in a variety of situations. His messages of standing out and rising above the crowd to become remarkable must be shown everywhere.
The first example that Godin uses to illustrate his point about marketing success is the sliced bread and Otto Rohwedder. Otto was credited with the invention of sliced bread, and he poured hours into the patenting and creation of the product. However, for the first fifteen years after sliced bread had become available, no one bought it. This all changed when Wonder came around and discovered how to spread the idea of sliced bread, which made people want to buy it. Godin states that the patent or factories don’t matter and what matters is whether one can get their idea to spread. This raises an interesting point about marketing in the modern age that he goes on to discuss. He states that “Ideas that spread, win.” We are in a century of idea diffusion, and the best things for spreading ideas are TV and things like TV. TV makes ideas easy to spread through a system known as the TV Industrial Complex. It works like this: a company buys ads to promote their product, which in turn get them more distribution. This distribution helps to sell more products. The profit made from these sales is then used to buy more ads, thus restarting the cycle over again. In generations of the past, the TV industrial complex has done wonders for many of the popular brands we see today. However, the complex does not work anymore. Recently, marketers have learned that this is no longer an effective way of getting sales and making money. He says that people now have learned to not care about advertisers’ problems and to ignore messages seen on TV. Godin illustrates this through his pain reliever example. He has always bought a certain kind of pain reliever, so advertising is now not going to make him go through extra effort to change his ways. He then uses various examples to shed light on the state of marketing in the modern day. Today there are magazines dedicated entirely to water, and Coke Japan comes out with a new product every three weeks. Arby’s was even willing to pay $85 million to endorse an oven mitt with the voice of Tom Arnold. Godin states that this advertisement would not work on most people, and that consumers no longer care. He says that this is because consumers today have many more choices and much less time, making ignoring ads easier. He then uses an example to show how to break the slump many businesses find themselves in. If someone is driving down a road and they see a cow, they don’t stop. Cows are boring and normal. However, if a cow is purple, people will stop and gape. He then relates this to the business world in saying that the products that get sold and make money are those that are remarkable. He uses many examples to add depth to this point as well. He says that people see new products as “fresh” and they “didn’t know that was there.” He states that it is a completely different process to see which ideas spread and which do not nowadays. He uses an example of a baker in Paris who had the industry in need of French bread in the palm of his hand. This was because his product was remarkable and his idea spread easily. He says that we should market to people who care, and who are on the outer spectrum of marketing. You need to talk to people who care about your product and make it easy for them to tell their friends. He then uses many examples to bring validity to his ideas. Godin states that the least effective thing that you can do now is be safe. If something is very good, it is boring and will not be noticed. To truly get ahead, one must be remarkable.
Throughout Seth’s talk, he used specific examples to back up each new idea that he brought to the table. This helped reinforce what he had to say and helped me to see how it applies in the real world. I feel that his presentation was well delivered and engaging because of the quality in his examples. He really helped me to see the bigger picture through his precise and analytical presentation style.
The ideas discussed in this talk can change the world of marketing forever. It not only makes me interested in this field, but makes me curious as to how it will evolve with us. And I believe that it will evolve, and quite drastically. New mediums that some may never have even thought of for advertising are now becoming possible sources of profit. This marketing revolution will sweep over the world along with the conceptual age. One giant leap in our society will be seen soon, and those who can possess mastery of remarkable ideas sooner will have the edge over those who cannot. This is very similar to right-brained ideas becoming more in-demand and relevant.
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