Tuesday, September 09, 2008

A friend told me about it.

28 comments:

Mike Craycraft said...

You hit the nail on the head with this one. How come all of the junk products like the miracle weight loss pill need a 30 minute infomercial at 3am every morning to sell their product. It certainly isn;t because it is a good product.

Jeremy Rice said...

This is clearly SethGodin-bait.


:)

Anonymous said...

I was researching vehicles for a product we made, and on a whim looked at infomercials.

I found out that because infomercials are very effective (low $ per minute rate because it's at odd hours, but higher return on impression) the typical markup for a product sold on an infomercial is at least 4 times the cost per unit. That's a 400% markup.

I have not bought an infomercial product since.

Anonymous said...

BTW - By vehicles I meant venues. Sorry, that probably made it really confusing.

M. Steve Heartsill said...

Right on target...as usual!

Unknown said...

Ooh, "anti-marketing dollar. That's a good market".

I'll tell my people to contact your people about exciting advertising opportunities on your blog.

Anonymous said...

hi there! I like the design of your blog.. anyway, i just stubled upon here from google.. you draw well!

Zac Martin said...

"Purple Cow".

Dan Hixon said...

Time Shares!

Arvind Iyer said...

Its not that simple :)

robert said...

You never see advertisements for Ferraris...

Anonymous said...

This blog is right where the curve hits the x-axis. I love it.

Thoughtful Review Guy said...

I guess that's why I never see advertisements for Boons Farm wine.

Paul said...

I've noticed this a lot with movie releases.

Bret said...

Oh, thanks a lot. Just throw the secret right out there for everbody.

Anonymous said...

Warranty v. Quality also works

Jeremy said...

just ask Billy Mays

Anonymous said...

Brilliant. And so true!

Anonymous said...

Its cute, I like it, but it is absolute nonsense. Plenty of companies make quality products but need advertising and marketing to explain and persuade busy customers to buy or use. Sure word of mouth is a massive driver but advertising and word of mouth live side by side, they don't replace each other. Sales = f(advertising, wom, price, availability etc.) finding the right balance to optimise sales is the key ...

Anonymous said...

I wish this were actually true, some products are quality or gold, and hardly anyone hears about it. I agree with simon. Though, perhaps all that you could do to fix this were to make it a much sharper curve.

Anonymous said...

Surely with a comment like that, Simon should have been Siimon

Sandra said...

The first thing that came to mind when I read this was Nalgene water bottles. We had a discussion on this very topic (long before all the outdoor/camping stores starting making their own): Everyone had one, but no one ever saw a single ad for it. There was no need. Word got around that these things were awesome 99% indestructable (we tried to destruct it...seriously) containers.
No need for ads.

Anonymous said...

Ferraris were "advertised" like crazy for decades via Motor Racing, till they became legendary. Still going at it in Formula 1, too, by the way. So, there is advertising, and there is advertising...

laura said...

Same logic applies to websites. :)

Anonymous said...

To Simon -

This is not nonsense. Note that the curve never hits either axis. Which means you never completely replace advertising with word-of-mouth, or vice-versa.

And you never have a completely perfect product, or completely trashy one.

Very good graph.

Anonymous said...

Other clarifying point - perhaps instead of "Quality" it should be "Perceived Quality".

So with the Ferrari example, the product was always great, but people didn't know that at first.

So heavy advertising and product interaction was necessary, to demonstrate the quality.

Over time, the perceived value became really high. While they still advertise a lot, their word-of-mouth is probably through the roof.

Same with Harley-Davidson. :)

Anonymous said...

"Warranty vs Quality"
Wouldn't work as well.

In developing country, one case is Indonesia. There isn't such a thing called Warranty.

Warranty is cost. And in developing country, price war is prevalent, so in order to attract more customer, sell lower than your competitor; in other words, lower cost price than your competitor.

Anonymous said...

What does this say about the Obama Campaign flooding the airwaves? :-(

 
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