To many, the business of direct marketing may seem very number-centric. A company mantra of ours is "we grow our bottom line by growing yours" and if the sums don't (and won't ever) add up then there is no point in starting a project. But behind this unforgiving mathematical straitjacket there lies the X factor - the consumer. We can predict what we think they will do, what our experience tells us they will do, but what if, on the day, no-one responds to an ad? There is no telling what the man on the street will do.
Or is there? For a fascinating insight into how concepts take off and why people make the decisions that they do, you should read two books by Malcolm Gladwell - The Tipping Point and Blink!.
The Tipping Point deals with how products, movements, attitudes etc. develop in terms of growth. Why did NY hipsters suddenly all start wearing Hush Puppies, rescuing the brand in the process? Why should the Kevin Bacon Game be easier if it was the Rod Steiger game? And why the hell does everyone yawn if one person does?
Blink! on the other hand tells us how people come to make decisions. I always knew that going with my instinctive answer in a pub quiz was better than listen to pub bore's long and reasoned argument, but now i know why. Even scarier - at one point Gladwell meets a man who can tell how long a couple will stay together by observing them in conversation for 15 seconds. Scarier still - he has always been right.
If I knew some way of tying this into our work here - what will make people respond to media, in large volumes and instantaneously - well, put it this way, I'd have a lot more time to blog...
These books are a really good read. My copies are floating around the office somewhere - feel free to borrow them!
Tim P
Not me - Malcolm Gladwell (he has considerably more hair!)