Note that the title of this post is quite clichéd, and that’s exactly what we’ll be discussing.
When marketers talk about the life cycle of a product, they begin to discuss innovators, conservatives, followers, and the early and late majority. All of this reasoning essentially acknowledges that for most consumers, advertisements and any kind of market communication are not enough to form an understanding of a product. They rely on the experiences of other consumers. The people who “bite” on advertising are a standard minority, roughly the same number as the overall “freaks” in society—about five percent, no more.
It’s understandable. The poaching of people’s ability to perceive information, along with the overwhelming presence of lies in all forms of media, has led to a situation where people have stopped responding to external stimuli altogether. Billboards don’t work. TV ads don’t work. Newspapers don’t work. BTL (Below The Line marketing) doesn’t work. All of this is tied to the “wikification” of the economy—fragmentation of producers and increased competition not only in the market itself but also in the information space.
Marketers, on one hand, acknowledge that advertising efforts should be aimed at innovators. But on the other hand, they immediately believe that earning the loyalty of innovators is very difficult. Innovators tend to jump from one thing to another. Marketing currently lacks the tools for targeted selection of innovators and keeping them within its influence. Until now.
Oh, is it already interesting? But I had to read three paragraphs. I didn’t write anything above intentionally. The fewer people read this to the end, the more interesting the experiment becomes. Those who will read it to the end will either be those who somehow believe that I can write something sensible or those who are recommended this article. I’m not counting on innovators at all. Their minds are already overloaded with constant choices, and they won’t have time to read yet another opus from a blogger with a penchant for rambling.
Marketing keeps trying to come up with new catchy words to grab the attention of innovators. The word “new” has already become a cliché. Over the past decade, during the explosive growth of information technology, almost all “positive” epithets have turned into clichés: exclusive, elite, improved, creative, fresh, traditional, classic, prestigious, groundbreaking… The mine of epithets has run dry. There’s nothing left to grab onto. Moreover, each of these epithets is usually accompanied by an asterisk and a small note at the bottom, the meaning of which can be summed up in two words: “not true.”
So what to do? Well, there’s not much left to do. We need to use the nice perks that modern technology offers to compile a list of innovators in a specific market. And not just any innovators, but those who are actively recommending. Yes, people are already starting to use bloggers for this purpose. But… once again, in a traditional way. And it ends up being just paid promotions. I don’t know about you, but when I thought in this direction, I immediately came up with about five ideas on how to identify and engage with innovators. The ideas are out there. Take advantage of them! My experiment is that I’m willing to bet that either someone is already doing something in this direction or will start doing it very soon.
This is the new marketing, where the money allocated for promoting a product is invested not in advertising and PR, but in specific innovators with specific identification details.