In marketing, you get a choice:
1. You can have the biggest budget in your category (and simply out-spend your competition)
2. You can become the most fascinating option in your category (and succeed even on a limited budget)
During yesterday’s Qualcomm global marketing meeting, I explored how their latest untraditional ideas help them stand out from the competition. Here’s a photo of that keynote:
Biggest budget? Or most fascinating?
You can out-spend the competition, or out-think them. Either works.
Here’s what doesn’t work: Having a limited budget and expecting that mediocre ideas will make a substantive difference.
(Sorry. They won’t. If you have a limited budget but are unwilling to create fascinating ideas, I recommend slashing your marketing budget and finding a more effective use of your money.)
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
From Fascinating to Forgotten in 2 minutes – when the boss fired the fascinating advertising agent and hired the traditionalist out of fear. Now treading in a pool of blandness and mediocrity.
Hi Sally,
Great budget or great innovation, it really is that simple. Though I don’t believe you can get great results without great ideas even if you have a billion dollar budget. The great idea can be the product (iPod) or the ad (Swagger wagon by Toyota).
That’s especially true if you’re advertising something “normal”; something people have already tried (cars, drinks, newspapers). That’s true even in writing a blog; if your headline doesn’t feel new and interesting, people won’t read the rest.
The content (or product) isn’t as important as the way you present it. Sure the content (or the product you’re selling) has to be great too, but it’s not enough. For example: would you click to read a post titled, “How to create fascination”? Maybe, but there’s a good chance you’ve read a hundred posts about it already. What if it said, “How to Seduce a Goldfish“? The content stays the same, the “packaging” just becomes more interesting…
Thanks for putting the idea into such simple words
Excellent point.
Here’s one to use for your presentations:
Remember that movie the blair witch project?
It was made with less than $50k and grossed millions.
People were fascinated with the story and how it was presented as a folk story, etc.
Excellent stuff thanks for writing.