Marketers spend a billion dollars a year targeting influentials. Duncan Datts says they're wasting their money.
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Anonymous
said...
I believe Watts and Keller have landed on either side of the truth.
Watts claims the "accidental influential" who could be anyone for any product. They are average people with average connectivity. Trends, Watts believes, rely on society's receptivity to a new product or idea and not upon the special qualities of the inaugural messengers. Thus, success depends instead on random chance and so smart advertisers should increase their odds by blasting away with mass marketing and wait to see what sticks.
Keller, by contrast, casts his lot with the "Influentials." In his view every trend begins with the same group of special people no matter the product. Influentials are well-read and highly connected and these qualities impart prodigious persuasive powers.
Both men, however, miss a fundamental truth; Trends must start before they can spread. Therefore the receptivity of the first individuals to learn of a new product play a key role in determining its fate. If they buy then a trend has a chance to develop. If they don’t then the party is over.
The problem with influentials and accidental influentials is that we don’t know whether they are likely or unlikely to buy the promoted product. By Watts’s view we are all equally likely to start a needle pointing trend as a fad involving death metal garage bands. Conversely, Keller believes that both of those trends would always begin with the same group of people. But if you consider your own behavior for even a moment you realize this can’t be true.
I believe the best way to understand the marketing process—the way messages are sent, received, acted upon, and spread, is to think of fire. I saw these forces in action when I worked as the marketing director for The Purpose Driven Life, the bestselling hardcover book in American history and describe my observations in a book called PyroMarketing. (www.pyromarketing.com)
Trends begin with a group of people I call “The Driest Tinder.” It is their passion not their position that makes them special. They have what Watt’s would call a “low adoption threshold.” This means they are more likely to buy your product or service than the population at large. Since they are more likely to buy, they are also more likely to start a trend.
Next, and perhaps most importantly, the driest tinder possess a special kind of connectivity. They are no more connected than the rest of us but their friends and associates share their “low adoption threshold” for the same product thanks to a human psychological force called homophily. Homophily means “love of same” and it describes our tendency to gather with similar others into affiliation networks. Packers fans seek out other Packers fans and so on. Affiliation networks allow us to identify and communicate with what Watt’s calls “percolating vulnerable clusters” or, groups of people who know each other and share a low adoption threshold.
For The Purpose Driven Life those groups were 1200 churches across the United States that adopted the 40 Days of Purpose campaign and together read Rick Warren’s book over a concentrated period. From there the fire spread from church to church and beyond until the book had sold 30 million copies in just three years.
The combination of the driest tinder’s receptivity to a particular product and their connectivity to like-minded others make them the place where trends begin. Duncan Watts was right about one thing though; trends are more like forest fires.
1 comment:
I believe Watts and Keller have landed on either side of the truth.
Watts claims the "accidental influential" who could be anyone for any product. They are average people with average connectivity. Trends, Watts believes, rely on society's receptivity to a new product or idea and not upon the special qualities of the inaugural messengers. Thus, success depends instead on random chance and so smart advertisers should increase their odds by blasting away with mass marketing and wait to see what sticks.
Keller, by contrast, casts his lot with the "Influentials." In his view every trend begins with the same group of special people no matter the product. Influentials are well-read and highly connected and these qualities impart prodigious persuasive powers.
Both men, however, miss a fundamental truth; Trends must start before they can spread. Therefore the receptivity of the first individuals to learn of a new product play a key role in determining its fate. If they buy then a trend has a chance to develop. If they don’t then the party is over.
The problem with influentials and accidental influentials is that we don’t know whether they are likely or unlikely to buy the promoted product. By Watts’s view we are all equally likely to start a needle pointing trend as a fad involving death metal garage bands. Conversely, Keller believes that both of those trends would always begin with the same group of people. But if you consider your own behavior for even a moment you realize this can’t be true.
I believe the best way to understand the marketing process—the way messages are sent, received, acted upon, and spread, is to think of fire. I saw these forces in action when I worked as the marketing director for The Purpose Driven Life, the bestselling hardcover book in American history and describe my observations in a book called PyroMarketing. (www.pyromarketing.com)
Trends begin with a group of people I call “The Driest Tinder.” It is their passion not their position that makes them special. They have what Watt’s would call a “low adoption threshold.” This means they are more likely to buy your product or service than the population at large. Since they are more likely to buy, they are also more likely to start a trend.
Next, and perhaps most importantly, the driest tinder possess a special kind of connectivity. They are no more connected than the rest of us but their friends and associates share their “low adoption threshold” for the same product thanks to a human psychological force called homophily. Homophily means “love of same” and it describes our tendency to gather with similar others into affiliation networks. Packers fans seek out other Packers fans and so on. Affiliation networks allow us to identify and communicate with what Watt’s calls “percolating vulnerable clusters” or, groups of people who know each other and share a low adoption threshold.
For The Purpose Driven Life those groups were 1200 churches across the United States that adopted the 40 Days of Purpose campaign and together read Rick Warren’s book over a concentrated period. From there the fire spread from church to church and beyond until the book had sold 30 million copies in just three years.
The combination of the driest tinder’s receptivity to a particular product and their connectivity to like-minded others make them the place where trends begin. Duncan Watts was right about one thing though; trends are more like forest fires.
Spread the fire. GS
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