Seth, You Got Some 'Splainin to Do!

So I'm glancing at the featured article of Strategy + Business, an article entitled, "The Power of Dumb Ideas." Needless to say I'm curious; I'd just read Seth Godin's Purple Cow, from which I'd deducted (and fully believe), if you cannot create a revolutionary idea, don't just make up something. (Hence my disgust at seeing an ad last night for enlarged M&Ms--what was wrong with the little ones?)

This article in S+B cites a Booz Allen Hamilton study that says that "only four broad ideas, copied again and again across sectors, accounted for 80 percent of the breakout businesses created between 1985 and 1995."

This study was a critical factor in concluding the following:

"...David Ogilvy’s contention that 'it takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product' no longer applies. His fellow advertising guru Bill Bernbach’s belief that, in marketing, 'not to be different is virtually suicidal' today may be suicidal in and of itself.

The solution to marketing’s current ills is not more creativity. It’s less."

I laughed out loud at reading this, and thought to myself. Seth Godin would be shrieking if he read this. But then I shrieked, as I read where this assertion originated, Seth's new book, The Big Moo: Stop Trying to Be Perfect and Start Being Remarkable. Thanks to Ken Brand, I have a copy of it on my desk.

Now, I realize 1) It took me three years to get up to speed with Purple Cow, I might just have slept through another major paradigm shift, and now good ideas no longer reign supreme; or 2) I might have taken this out of context and need to open the damn book--which I will--and get some clarification. Judging by the title of the New Moo, being remarkable is still critical. Phew. But, as S+B writer Randall Rothenberg writes, "The big idea doesn't have to be brand new. In a world overwhelmed by complexity, it's the context that gives dumb ideas their power to galvanize a team, create faith, and build the world's greatest marketing department."

So then, so long as the team that decided to market oversized M&Ms was galvanized to create such a stupid product, that's all that matters?

Maybe Seth didn't write this particular essay. The book, after all, is a compilation. If that isn't the case I'm confused. This seems like too fine a hair to split in the realm of being remarkable. It sounds like a recipe for good, old fashioned mediocrity.

Comments

[seth godin]

splainin:

Randall wrote that one.

I just collected em.

I think RR's point isn't to get people to dumb down, though. It's to give them permission not to be perfect.

Thanks for the post!

[progenitor]

I don't often, but.... to make a deduction is to deduce, ie. reduction...reduce; induction...induce.
At least you know I read your stuff.

[Don The Idea Guy]

Good concerns on whether or not to embrace 'the power of dumb ideas.'

I think a more apt title might be the power of OLD ideas, but I think 'dumb' makes for a sexier headline.

I'm one of those guys who believes there are very few "truly" new ideas - more than likely that hot new innovation is a reinvention or combination of some rather aged concepts. iTunes is simply a jukebox, and blogs are merely journals, and LinkedIn is just a bigger version of 'Six-Degrees of Kevin Bacon.'

All great ideas, just not really all that new. Their APPLICATION, however -- now THAT'S new.

But of course, this idea of application isn't new either. Thomas Edison said it a long time ago: "Your idea only has to be original in its adaptation to the problem you are working
on."

(I wonder from whom he adapted that quote?)

[Jim]

Thought you might enjoy this quote from Friedrich Nietzsche, re: mediocrity.

"Let us not underestimate the privileges of the mediocre. As one climbs higher, life becomes ever harder; the coldness increases, responsibility increases."

Methinks we should all try to climb a little higher, where the air is cold.