A national radio broadcaster regularly receives music singles from would be musicians who feel they have the talent to become stars and who just need to get discovered. This broadcaster said that he receives more singles than he can listen to on a daily basis which, spanning his entire 26+ years in syndication, is potentially hundreds of thousands of songs.
In over 26 years and hundreds of thousands of songs from aspiring musicians only once did he receive a single that he believed to have star quality. Most of what he received was bad to average at best - some was even good - but only one in one hundred thousand plus songs stood out as being distinctively exceptional.
The broadcaster’s name is Howard Stern and the one in one hundred thousand plus talent independently went on to become the acclaimed musical artist Kid Rock.
The point being that truly exceptional talent is as rare as it is vivid, and when channeled correctly, it is irrepressible.
A Star is Formed
Anders Ericsson is a professor of psychology and a pioneer of the “Expert Performance Movement” who spent years studying the progression of talent in top performers across varied pursuits. Mr. Ericsson offers that regardless of the field, expert performers are almost always made, not born. He even suggests that talent is overrated as a trait.
Mr. Ericsson theorizes that the reason talent is so rare isn’t because the potential for it is in such limited supply. Rather, exceptional talent is rare because it takes substantial time and practice to realize it. If you aren’t doing something that you are truly passionate about, then you most likely won’t possess the desire to undertake the extreme work required to be exceptional at it.
Mr. Ericsson also believes that, far from being innate, talent is actually something that everyone can acquire through deliberate practice. Deliberate practice, beyond excessive repetition of a task, involves setting specific goals, obtaining immediate feedback on the actions used to achieve those goals and concentrating on the technique that goes into achieving the goal as much as on the goal itself.
That is not to say that all people have equal potential. Instead, deliberate practice can make mediocre talent good, good talent great, and great talent exceptional.
Average to Exceptional
Hitting a baseball is widely considered to be one of the most difficult things to do in all of sports. It takes exceptional eye-hand coordination, a high awareness level, strong intuition and years of practice. Even then a good hitter will only succeed roughly 30% of the time.
There was once an athlete who at 30 years old wanted to chase his lifelong dream of playing baseball professionally. It had been at least 15 years since he stepped onto a baseball diamond as a player. More so, when he had played he played as a pitcher, a position that commonly doesn't hit. Now, attempting to enter baseball as an outfielder, hitting would be essential to his game.
To make up for his 15 year absence from the game this player woke up every morning before sunrise to practice hitting. He was always the first player to arrive and the last to leave. He would take batting practice for hours before “official” team batting practice began, then take it again in the time between team batting practice and the game, and finally one last time for a few hours after the game.
Every single day he practiced in this manner, sometimes until his hands were bleeding.
The player played wound up hitting .202 with 51 RBIs and 114 strikeouts in 127 games. Poor stats by most measures, but when you consider this was done in AA minor league ball against some of baseball’s top prospects after 15 years away from the game, they look less so.
Furthermore, all of his coaches noticed marked improvement from spring training to the end of the season. In the Fall League that follows the minor league season he batted .252 - a decent average for any player. And that against pitching prospects that most considered to be professionally bound.
Through disciplined hard work and deliberate practice this player, in just 1 year, went from not playing baseball in 15 years to being decent at what many consider to be the most difficult athletic skill of any sport.
The players name was Michael Jordan and anyone who has ever coached or played with him consider him to be the hardest working athlete they have ever seen. Is he a great athlete - sure. But it was his unparalleled work ethic and his use of deliberate practice that made a poor baseball player average, and an exceptional basketball player the greatest that has ever played the game.
Showing posts with label Marketing Strategy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marketing Strategy. Show all posts
Monday, September 24, 2012
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
The Subtle Art of Self Persuasion
There was a couple in the early stages of relationship when, one turned to the other and exclaimed, “You’re perfect.” One would assume that statement would be met with some level of positivity. On the contrary, the recipient felt something just short of revulsion.
Character flaws notwithstanding, when questioned as to the source of this negative emotion the reply was in some respects poignant. The reasoning went that being in the very preliminary stages of attraction the “couple” still knew very little about one another. As such, the blank spaces were filled with the imagination of what could be. In attributing perfection to the relationship at such an early stage, in reality what the person was actually doing was fulfilling their want of a perfect relationship by applying it to the situation.
Essentially the “You are perfect” had nothing to do about the declaree and everything to do with the declarer. It was their imagination, fueled by the desire for a perfect relationship, that led one person to convince themselves that the other was somehow “perfect”.
This ability to convince ourselves of the things we want to be true is a common occurrence that happens beyond the scope of relationships. As evidence, take this recent Adweek article where an ordinary man pretends to be a celebrity to the effect that people wind up treating him like one.
Talking To Ourselves
Peter Wason was a cognitive psychologist who coined the term “confirmation bias”, which describes people’s tendency to favor information that validates their preconceptions, hypotheses and personal beliefs regardless of the information’s basis in truth.
Mr. Wason conducted an experiment where he presented subjects with a number sequence: 2,4,6. The subjects were told that the sequence was created by a rule that they were to uncover by generating their own three-number sequences. After each attempt the subjects were told if their sequence met the rule, and they could generate as many sequences as needed until they were confident of the rule.
The rule was “any three numbers in increasing order”. Despite the rule’s simplicity only about 25% of the subjects figured it out because most, upon selecting a hypothesis, only looked for evidence to validate that hypothesis while eschewing any attempts to refute it.
Once told they were wrong, the subjects were allowed to try again. However, when suggested to use a different approach, most continued to only look at ways that supported their hypothesis. Mr. Wason concluded that people have a confirmation bias; they are prejudiced to test a hypothesis by working to confirm it instead of working to falsify it.
Put another way, once people have a belief they have a tendency to perceive things in ways that support their belief at the expense of any evidence to the contrary. A relationship is perceived as perfect because it is imaged to be that way, and only evidence that supports that belief is accepted.
Marketers are regular victims of confirmation bias:
We fall in love with our ideas and create reasons why they work while ignoring why they don’t.
We chase trends while ignoring the lack of data supporting their value.
We do what we have always done while ignoring the metrics around diminishing returns.
We create slogans of perceived grandeur while ignoring their emptiness of meaning.
We blame our agencies or clients for bad work while ignoring our own role in the creation.
We consistently talk to ourselves while ignoring our consumers.
The story didn’t end well for the “couple”, as the imperfections of the person inevitably became apparent, disappointment ensued, and that person wound up getting dumped. Don’t talk yourself into believing what you are saying. Actively find the holes in the story and fill them with texture or press delete and start again.
Be aware of your confirmation bias, because it ultimately leads to “a dump”.
Character flaws notwithstanding, when questioned as to the source of this negative emotion the reply was in some respects poignant. The reasoning went that being in the very preliminary stages of attraction the “couple” still knew very little about one another. As such, the blank spaces were filled with the imagination of what could be. In attributing perfection to the relationship at such an early stage, in reality what the person was actually doing was fulfilling their want of a perfect relationship by applying it to the situation.
Essentially the “You are perfect” had nothing to do about the declaree and everything to do with the declarer. It was their imagination, fueled by the desire for a perfect relationship, that led one person to convince themselves that the other was somehow “perfect”.
This ability to convince ourselves of the things we want to be true is a common occurrence that happens beyond the scope of relationships. As evidence, take this recent Adweek article where an ordinary man pretends to be a celebrity to the effect that people wind up treating him like one.
Talking To Ourselves
Peter Wason was a cognitive psychologist who coined the term “confirmation bias”, which describes people’s tendency to favor information that validates their preconceptions, hypotheses and personal beliefs regardless of the information’s basis in truth.
Mr. Wason conducted an experiment where he presented subjects with a number sequence: 2,4,6. The subjects were told that the sequence was created by a rule that they were to uncover by generating their own three-number sequences. After each attempt the subjects were told if their sequence met the rule, and they could generate as many sequences as needed until they were confident of the rule.
The rule was “any three numbers in increasing order”. Despite the rule’s simplicity only about 25% of the subjects figured it out because most, upon selecting a hypothesis, only looked for evidence to validate that hypothesis while eschewing any attempts to refute it.
Once told they were wrong, the subjects were allowed to try again. However, when suggested to use a different approach, most continued to only look at ways that supported their hypothesis. Mr. Wason concluded that people have a confirmation bias; they are prejudiced to test a hypothesis by working to confirm it instead of working to falsify it.
Put another way, once people have a belief they have a tendency to perceive things in ways that support their belief at the expense of any evidence to the contrary. A relationship is perceived as perfect because it is imaged to be that way, and only evidence that supports that belief is accepted.
Marketers are regular victims of confirmation bias:
We fall in love with our ideas and create reasons why they work while ignoring why they don’t.
We chase trends while ignoring the lack of data supporting their value.
We do what we have always done while ignoring the metrics around diminishing returns.
We create slogans of perceived grandeur while ignoring their emptiness of meaning.
We blame our agencies or clients for bad work while ignoring our own role in the creation.
We consistently talk to ourselves while ignoring our consumers.
The story didn’t end well for the “couple”, as the imperfections of the person inevitably became apparent, disappointment ensued, and that person wound up getting dumped. Don’t talk yourself into believing what you are saying. Actively find the holes in the story and fill them with texture or press delete and start again.
Be aware of your confirmation bias, because it ultimately leads to “a dump”.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Social Spam Brand Building
Father’s Day recently passed, and similar to what happens during every holiday in our digitally social age, Facebook was alight with posts addressing the festivities and the importance of the day. Alas, not to let an opportunity pass them by, opportunistic brands and marketers everywhere also tried to capitalize on the holiday, like they do every other holiday, by posting calendar-related nonsense, like this example from Old Spice, in the hope that the timely relevance of their post will inspire fans to like or respond in kind, thus sharing the brand’s message with their respective fan bases.
This got me thinking about how brands communicate on Facebook in general, and more specifically, it got me thinking about a problem I have long had with how most brands utilize Facebook to deliver brand messages.
Take this post from Coca-Cola for example. They are not offering anything of value here, either from a content, offer or enhanced experience perspective. Breaking it down to the most base motives, Coca-Cola is essentially delivering a lowest common denominator message to try to exploit their fanbase into propagating their brand. And this is certainly not exclusive to Coca-Cola, it is status quo across most brands utilizing Facebook to engage people.
Am I crazy or is this approach no different than the spam about purchasing Viagra and cheap prescription pills that we receive in our inboxes daily? Put another way, when savvy brands look to do email based CRM programs they perform rigorous exercises to ensure that the content they provide is valuable, that the frequency of delivery is palatable and that people opt-in to receive their messages so the brands are not providing them with messages that they don’t want. Why should Facebook or social media be any different? Would you send an email to your opt-in database about broadswords & mobile phone cases and with no other content of value whatsoever?
I realize that email and social media don’t make for such direct comparisons as illustrated above, but I can’t help but feel that in the digital social space many brands are taking advantage of the connections they have built with people. I also realize that when brands first started popping up on Facebook there may have been a novelty to interacting with a brand or having a brand comment on a post. However I have to believe, now that brands have more or less saturated the space, that people don’t really care when a brand asks them what their favorite color is, nor do they believe that the brand cares about their answer.
To that point, I am linked to a number of brands on Facebook for professional tracking purposes, one of which happens to be Old Spice, and when Old Spice’s randomly comical posts like, “Is your mind currently generating mastodon steak recipes while your body is rescuing a baby panda from a pack of angry cougars?” first started appearing in my newsfeed, I admit I found them entertaining. However, after a few weeks they quickly lost their novelty and began to annoy me in their frequency and repetitiveness. A sprinkling of these posts within the larger context of content with actual value I might have been able to handle, but in the absence of that content it simply grew old quickly.
Am I alone in this thinking? Am I giving people too much credit in what they should expect out of brands in social media? Am I being too idealistic in how I think a brand should activate on Facebook and other social channels, which is to say, to provide content of value, however that may be defined by the specific brand in question?
There are definitely brands out there that are doing just that, and doing it well, unfortunately most are focused on lowest common denominator nonsense. And to their credit, Coca-Cola is actually creating deeper based content which they share off of their Facebook page, such as this and this. Which in turn begs the question - is it worth it?
I truly believe that it is, yet still I question whether that is correct. This is something I will continue to explore in this blog.
This got me thinking about how brands communicate on Facebook in general, and more specifically, it got me thinking about a problem I have long had with how most brands utilize Facebook to deliver brand messages.
Take this post from Coca-Cola for example. They are not offering anything of value here, either from a content, offer or enhanced experience perspective. Breaking it down to the most base motives, Coca-Cola is essentially delivering a lowest common denominator message to try to exploit their fanbase into propagating their brand. And this is certainly not exclusive to Coca-Cola, it is status quo across most brands utilizing Facebook to engage people.
Am I crazy or is this approach no different than the spam about purchasing Viagra and cheap prescription pills that we receive in our inboxes daily? Put another way, when savvy brands look to do email based CRM programs they perform rigorous exercises to ensure that the content they provide is valuable, that the frequency of delivery is palatable and that people opt-in to receive their messages so the brands are not providing them with messages that they don’t want. Why should Facebook or social media be any different? Would you send an email to your opt-in database about broadswords & mobile phone cases and with no other content of value whatsoever?
I realize that email and social media don’t make for such direct comparisons as illustrated above, but I can’t help but feel that in the digital social space many brands are taking advantage of the connections they have built with people. I also realize that when brands first started popping up on Facebook there may have been a novelty to interacting with a brand or having a brand comment on a post. However I have to believe, now that brands have more or less saturated the space, that people don’t really care when a brand asks them what their favorite color is, nor do they believe that the brand cares about their answer.
To that point, I am linked to a number of brands on Facebook for professional tracking purposes, one of which happens to be Old Spice, and when Old Spice’s randomly comical posts like, “Is your mind currently generating mastodon steak recipes while your body is rescuing a baby panda from a pack of angry cougars?” first started appearing in my newsfeed, I admit I found them entertaining. However, after a few weeks they quickly lost their novelty and began to annoy me in their frequency and repetitiveness. A sprinkling of these posts within the larger context of content with actual value I might have been able to handle, but in the absence of that content it simply grew old quickly.
Am I alone in this thinking? Am I giving people too much credit in what they should expect out of brands in social media? Am I being too idealistic in how I think a brand should activate on Facebook and other social channels, which is to say, to provide content of value, however that may be defined by the specific brand in question?
There are definitely brands out there that are doing just that, and doing it well, unfortunately most are focused on lowest common denominator nonsense. And to their credit, Coca-Cola is actually creating deeper based content which they share off of their Facebook page, such as this and this. Which in turn begs the question - is it worth it?
I truly believe that it is, yet still I question whether that is correct. This is something I will continue to explore in this blog.
Monday, June 18, 2012
Use Protection: The Hidden Danger Behind Brand Relationships
I recently read an AdWeek article written by the Ad Contrarian which basically stated that the prevailing dogma around digital and social media providing an opportunity to finally meet the unfulfilled desire of people to form relationships with brands is bullshit.
I have high regard for the Ad Contrarian and I believe that If you had to read only one industry blog it should be the Ad Contrarian blog, as it is one of the most insightful commentaries on the business of marketing and advertising, period. I also generally agree with the article’s point of view. However I do believe, as is the nature of the Ad Contrarian (and honestly part of what makes the blog great), that the relationship dynamic depicted in the article was painted a bit too black & white.
And now my shades of grey...
I do think the notion that people have an overwhelming pent up need to form deep relationships with their denture cream and throat lozenges is completely ludicrous. That being said, we also have to acknowledge that the advent of digital media has altered the way in which people interact with advertising, in that, interruption based messages (e.g. a TV commercial) now have a harder time breaking through than they did prior to the evolution of the digital space. This dynamic is particularly accentuated in environments that have only ever existed in a digital form (e.g. online), which is why banner ads are, in most cases, completely useless.
The main driver behind this circumstance is the simple fact that digital platforms; whether they are computers, TiVo, tablets, Digital Video Recorders, etc., allow a greater ability for people to control whether or not they see advertising messages, and given that choice, most naturally opt not to. In order to counter this dynamic marketers are attempting to integrate their advertising into people’s media consumption in a way that compliments vs. interrupts the experience, and unfortunately in doing so, have created this distortion that people want to form relationships with brands the way they do with other human beings.
There is a relationship people want with brands and its parameters are simple:
For those two to three things, I the consumer will provide you with a limited amount of loyalty until you screw up.
That is it. What vehicles you use to communicate your part of the relationship does not change the parameters of the relationship, it merely changes the parameters of the communication. I will further extrapolate on this point in another post titled “The Stupid Shit Brands Do On Facebook”
I have high regard for the Ad Contrarian and I believe that If you had to read only one industry blog it should be the Ad Contrarian blog, as it is one of the most insightful commentaries on the business of marketing and advertising, period. I also generally agree with the article’s point of view. However I do believe, as is the nature of the Ad Contrarian (and honestly part of what makes the blog great), that the relationship dynamic depicted in the article was painted a bit too black & white.
And now my shades of grey...
I do think the notion that people have an overwhelming pent up need to form deep relationships with their denture cream and throat lozenges is completely ludicrous. That being said, we also have to acknowledge that the advent of digital media has altered the way in which people interact with advertising, in that, interruption based messages (e.g. a TV commercial) now have a harder time breaking through than they did prior to the evolution of the digital space. This dynamic is particularly accentuated in environments that have only ever existed in a digital form (e.g. online), which is why banner ads are, in most cases, completely useless.
The main driver behind this circumstance is the simple fact that digital platforms; whether they are computers, TiVo, tablets, Digital Video Recorders, etc., allow a greater ability for people to control whether or not they see advertising messages, and given that choice, most naturally opt not to. In order to counter this dynamic marketers are attempting to integrate their advertising into people’s media consumption in a way that compliments vs. interrupts the experience, and unfortunately in doing so, have created this distortion that people want to form relationships with brands the way they do with other human beings.
There is a relationship people want with brands and its parameters are simple:
- Provide me a quality product that meets the need it promises to meet (this includes appropriate levels of customer service based on the complexity of the product and/or category)
- Provide it at a price that is competitive
- In some instances, again depending on the product and/or category, provide me with a self-image boost derived from the cache the brand provides
For those two to three things, I the consumer will provide you with a limited amount of loyalty until you screw up.
That is it. What vehicles you use to communicate your part of the relationship does not change the parameters of the relationship, it merely changes the parameters of the communication. I will further extrapolate on this point in another post titled “The Stupid Shit Brands Do On Facebook”
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