How to Get Ideas That Spread – Talk by Seth Godin

Published by Jeet Tan on

Here’s a short summary of a very insightful talk by Seth Godin, on how ideas spread. Most ideas nowadays are boring, and are very safe. It’s not enough to be safe, they must be remarkable, spreadable:
  • Sliced bread, first 15 years – no one wanted it. It’s only after someone that came that knew how to spread ideas. That it became popular.
  • The game is all about if you can get your idea to spread, it doesn’t matter how good your product is, it’s worthless if it doesn’t spread.
  • Traditional advertising involves using the television to spread ideas. Buying an ad from the TV. Getting sales from that, and then reinvesting the sales into buying more ads.
  • Everyone is a marketer today, because anyone can spread ideas.
  • Consumers don’t care about you, because people have too many choices. They care only about what you can do for them. If you see a cow every single day, you’ll associate a cow as something that’s bland & boring. Therefor, you must become a purple cow, a cow that stands out. This is the same with business, all the business nowadays look the same, you must do something crazy to stand out.
  • Your ideas need to be remarkable, or they will not spread.
  • People like new, and fresh stuff, rather than the old and boring.
  • Market to the innovators and early adopters, because that’s how they spread ideas.
  • Only sell to people that are “OTAKU”, a Japanese term that are super nerds. These super nerds will be the people that take your idea and spread it.
  • Riskiest thing you can do is to be safe. The safe thing to do is to be at the fringes.
  • Cows are boring. They do not stand out, instead you want to be a purple cow – a cow that is something out of the ordinary.
Categories: marketing

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