Jul
20
“ideas that spread wins“, “the purple cow is noticed” and the product that can talk, can market itself. Being normal is boring but trying different is risky and not allowed most of the time (unless you are at Google or Grmtech). So, what is the safest way to try risky cow coloring.
- What do you mean by talking product?
Oh, any product that can make other talk about it is a talking product. Its presence is felt and talked about. Also it keep shouting, “talk about me! talk about me!”.
- How does it help?
Recently I met an ad doctor and he explained me a common disease with among of the new born kids, a blindness, ad blindness. Most of us have developed blindness toward ads. We know how to ignore ads; the billboard ads, the tv ads, the banner ads and online ads. Even the adsense is ignored, I don’t remember clicking on any ad for last few months. Interrupt advertising is going less and lesser effective. Some are taking the Permission marketing route. I still feel evangelistic marketing is the right way. We just need to make our products talkable to help these evangelists/consumers.
- Aji, wow but too confusing for me. Can I have an example?
Oh yes, why not. Let’s take an example. I am off today so was in kitchen, so lets take an example from kitchen itself. Let’s talk about Pillsbury atta.
Is this product talkable?
No, as it is hidden in kitchen and we don’t host more than 5 dinner gatherings in a month (I doubt Chappaties being a part of such dinners. Even if Chappaties are there, we will still have many other topics to talk about. People will always complement Mom’s special fish fry or chicken curry). How to make it talkable? Here is my 5 mins idea, how about giving a dough boy free with every Atta pack.
- Aji, but every other company is giving free items. How will this make it talkable?
In fact a very good question. You are absolutely right, this is not creating the purple cow effect to the expected level. How about giving size#1 dough boy with every pack. With pack number #2, you can replace your old dough boy with bigger one, size#2. And a bigger one with the next pack and a bigger with the next and so on and on. Let there be dough boys of 150 sizes and when your dough boy reaches a noticeable size, people will start talking about it. It will surely spread.
- Hmm.. Interesting but it is risky too
Oh yeah, everything new is risky and everything old is boring. You need to be a market leader to achieve something. You can’t follow Australian team and beat them too.
- But?
Sorry, just to add one point here. People talk more about my red leather cut shoe (Rs 200 only) than my other Nike shoe (Rs 5,000). It is about how talkable you are. I still love to talk about the comfortable provided by the Nike shoe but hardly I get the opportunity to do so. With the red leather shoe, every other person is forcing me to talk about it. I saw this leather cut shoe in our office and order one from the same person. I think that day itself the shoe had 4 sales. I wanted more :).
- What all products can be made talkable? Can all product do this?
No, not all. It can be categorized into different categories. In one word non-commercial products (or add-ons) will be talked. I think I should do another post to complete this subject.
- Why not today?
Today, I had a sleepy day. Also I has to stand 3 hrs to process my voter ID card to next level. Now its drizzling outside and I have taken an off to sleep and sleep. First sleep -> 1 am - 11 am, second sleep -> 3 pm - 7 pm and again going for one :). Don’t be jealous I can sleep for continuous 24 hrs. I don’t want to think before going for sleep. Please post the comments and encourage me for part II.
- What all will you cover in Part II?
I will be covering following topics:
- How to make your commercial and boring product talk?
- How to use web platform for loud talks (bigger reach)? (I have seen many companies doing it, Sunsilk, ponds and now Pepsi). I will also give an idea for Pepsi web.
- Can we give incentives for talking? (On web many have tried to poison the talking, I am against it. See my post on “Pay per post is a sweet poison for bloggers“.
- Why people talk this way? (As they are born this way)
- Will this stop ads? (No, ads will be used to introduce an idea. Ads will create a little more talking nodes. People will start using ads to create viral stuffs than for sales.)
Add comments if you liked this post and do ask related queries.
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Wow!! As usual GREAT post.
You know what every time I read your blog I learn some things about it.
Thanks,
Anirudh
Anirudh on July 21, 2007 - 12:39 pm @ 12:39 pm
Thanks Anirudh, even one such comment is a great motivation. I saw few more people reading this at company (Did I force them to
). I will try to complete the next part today itself.
AjiNIMC on July 21, 2007 - 7:48 pm @ 7:48 pm