By: Irina Skaya
Last Thursday, I attended Seth Godin’s presentation at NYU based on his latest book called, “Meatball Sundae Is Your Marketing Out of Sync?” I always knew that the owner of the world’s most popular marketing blog site and the best-seller author of nine marketing books is smart, but hearing from him in person was invaluable, inspirational and enlightening.
What’s a meatball sundae?
“[The combination of] meatballs and sundae are meant to be disgusting. If you use new marketing, the topping [the fudge, the cherry] just as a spin, you will fail,” Seth said as he slammed out one sound bite after another.
The Meatballs represent the 100 year-old marketing model which means interrupting the market and selling average products made for average people. The fudge and the cherries of the sundae are the toppings, which represent new marketing: blogs, YouTube, Google, Facebook, Wikis, widgets, etc. Meatballs and sundae are two things that don't mix, like just like new marketing and old marketing.
Seth raised some thought-provoking questions:
In the 1980’s, TV Guide sold for more money than ABC, CBS and NBC were worth all together. Today, how come when I go online to look for video - I go to YouTube and not TV Guide?
In the 1990’s America Online became popular because of e-mails and chatrooms, how come when I go online to find friends I don’t go on aolbook?
He then cited Josiah Wedgwood, an English potter who built an efficient factory organization during the Industrial Revolution, to emphasize if you change the media, and the organizations will change too.
Lessons learned:
• To drive sales revenue, marketers must restructure the marketing organization from top to bottom.
• Embrace the medium, [referring to SEOs] NOT fight the medium.
• If you can own a variety of choices - you win. For example, iTunes get their reveunue from titles that cannot be purchased at any record store.
• Marketers need to establish a direct communication between themselves and the consumers-the more the consumer interacts, the better the company does.
• Authentic stories matter! Stories that work spread, stories that spread are true; stories that are true are authentic.
• If a marketer is trying to solve a problem people do not have, they are INVISIBLE. You cannot spam yourself to success!
• In the Internet Age, it doesn’t matter how many viewers will see your ads, but who the viewers are.
Got Meatballs?
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