Seth Godin on Sliced Bread

Actually, Godin doesn’t spend much time speaking about sliced bread in this video, but the idea is a really attention getter: no one paid attention to sliced bread when it first came out. It took wonder making it something special before the idea really took off. Godin uses examples mostly from the consumer economy to talk about how ‘normal products for normal people’ is a risky idea these days. The problem is that people have more choices and less time to make those choices.

The same thing could be said for the BtoB economy. Using safe ideas in marketing, even within the BtoB space is essentially asking to be ignored. In addition. appealing to a small group of passionate users could be the best way of getting word out to a wider audience. PR can be a great tool in this regard and Godin’s talk really points out why it’s radically different than advertising. Advertising really counts on a lot of people seeing it. PR communicates to individuals. Sure, a smaller group of people might be reading a white paper or article or interview…but those are the people that count.

In a world of too many options and too little time, our obvious choice is to ignore the ordinary stuff. Marketing guru Seth Godin spells out why, when it comes getting our attention, bad or bizarre ideas are more successful than boring ones. And early adopters, not the mainstream’s bell curve, are the new sweet spot of the market.

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