Blu Maya Digital Marketing Agency

Talk about uniqueness, only Michael Jackson could pull this off! This got me thinking…

If you took any artist (pick any artist that tries to imitate MJ) and replaced him with MJ in his performances, would it be the same? Of course not. Now think about it this way, if you swapped employees with one of your competitors would your business change?

If your answer is yes then you’re on a good path because that means that your culture is unique.

if your answer is no then you’re a ‘me too’ because your people are a commodity (they can easily be replaced) and therefore your product and service also is.

What if you could change this? Start by having a point of view of how you think your product or service could be different and what the benefit to your customers would be. In short think about what makes you irreplaceable? Is it your customer service, how you deliver, how you create?

Takeaway: Inject what’s unique about the way you think into what you sell to make it something no one else can offer.

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I’ve always been impressed by the Jordan Brand and how it puts excellence into everything it does and releases. It’s to be expected as that’s what it’s legendary namesake stood for excellence on the basketball court.

Michael Jordan was known as a nightmare opponent, and this characteristic is reflected in it’s ‘Nightmares never sleep’ program for the release of the Air Jordan 2010. The captivating commercial features the Miami Heat’s Dwyane Wade unleashing his inner monster and terrorizing the court on his way to a dunk.

The shoes are top notch as expected and even the YouTube Channel page has a pleasant introduction that you’ll remember. And for those who just like MJ like to be challenged, there’s the interactive website which features 4 different games that will certainly test your hand eye coordination skills. My test results are below:

The results are also posted to your Facebook news feed if you want to tell your friends what you’re up or just outright challenge them!

The point: The Jordan Brand understands what it takes to stay relevant, it never sleeps.

Groundbreaking commercials, innovative sneakers that combine style and performance, people with respect, quality presentation and rabid fans make the Jordan Brand a powerhouse!

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Here are a couple of kids across the border in Tijuana that earn their money by entertaining rather than blowing fire from their mouths or just outright asking for it. If you didn’t already know, wrestling is BIG in Mexico and what you see here is very very good wrestling entertainment from a couple of 12 year old kids who after school go to an intersection near their home and put on a show.

They’re making around $30 – 40/day (dlls not mexican pesos) while only doing this for a couple of hours. Compare that to others who might not even make it to $10 in a week cleaning cars!

A few months back we saw these kids in person and were captivated and inspired by their creativity that to honor them we created the illustration below which is now our main character, he’s the differentiation superhero.

The principle of ‘being different’ is very simple: Think and act like a kid and don’t be afraid to be wrong.

So if you want to partner with us in the future, now you know where we’re coming from. How are you being different?

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So where do you place an idea so it spreads through networks?

There’s some network research from MIT that trumps the notion of the influencer: the most influential spreaders in a social network do not correspond to the best connected people or to the most central people.

The truth is we don’t really know specifically from where an idea/trend will spread from, we only know that the weakest links (the people we never think of) have higher spreading power than the strongest links and these people are found at the edges of a network.

So what’s a marketer/innovator to do?

Influencers don’t care about you

There are some theories but the one most everyone focuses on is reaching the influencers made popular by Malcolm Gladwell in his book the Tipping Point. Well good luck with that because most everyone including your competitors is doing the same thing, the race is on to reach the so called influencers and they can barely keep up with all the ideas they’re being asked to spread.

Imagine being the care taker for the President of the United States and you get all sorts of letters from people who want to say something to the President and your job is to filter out the one’s that are most relevant for him to read and take action on. Well that’s exactly the battle you have to fight when targeting the influencers, everybody knows them so why would your idea come first?

People will ONLY ‘spread an idea’ if they think it’s worth remarking about, not because you paid them for their attention.

The fringe is much more friendly

New ideas and trends come from the fringe, from the edge and not from the mainstream, and spread from the edge to the center and then the process repeats itself. You stand a better chance of catching that ‘fire starter idea’ by going out to the fringe (where nothing is settled) instead of looking for ideas where everyone is looking (the mainstream) and then focus on making your idea take form with people at the edge.

In conclusion here are a few things to remember to help your ideas spread:

1. Go outside the mainstream where things are changing and look for ideas there.
2. Do algorithmic innovation: generate a lot of ideas, figure out ways to try them out cheaply and quickly, and then scale-up the ones that seem most promising.
3. Your idea needs to be buzzworthy. Ask yourself: Would anyone tell a friend about this?
4. Feed it to the fringe.
5. Make the influencers come to you.

What do you think, what’s your experience with making ideas spread?

Collapse theory graphic by BlackCoffee

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Trends. Yes they’re always here and new one’s pop up it seems everyday to influence our culture and your brand. Knowing how to use them to your advantage is key, done well it’s like riding the perfect wave and letting others behind. Here’s a little exercise for you to ring in the new year with a blast, take any of the 20 trends expressed in the above video and think about how they influence your product and service, then think about how you can use them in combination to improve or differentiate yourself.

Happy trend hunting!

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