When was the last time Coke did something cool?

‘Creating a hype’ has been much more than a hype itself among the big multinational consumer brands. Almost every marketer is looking for ways to create a big hype around it’s brand. Whisper campaigns, guerrilla marketing, brand buzzing what have you not in the idiom of the A-list marketeer? In the mean time, the biggest brand name of them all, Coca Cola, does what? A bit of tv ads, sponsoring of the big sports events… that’s about it. Seems very innovative. And smart. All this ‘ trying to create a hype’ is, excuse me, complete bollocks.

The Hush Puppies effect
Every brand that has ever been successful by getting the cool kids behind it and then seeing it expand to the masses has been extremely lucky. There are not that many brands that can say they have actually succeeded in doing this. In fact, it is a shockingly small number of brands considering the vast amount of brands out there that all employ professional marketeers, trendwatchers and advertising creatives. It a matter of pure statistics that a couple of them would in fact get that lucky and be able to copy the ‘Hush Puppies effect’, made famous by Malcolm Gladwell.

Chaos and blind drivers
Am I saying that marketers do not know what they are doing? Well, actually: yes. I truly believe that many marketing exec tries his/her best at it, but the continuously mistake pure random success with events from which they can derive scientific knowledge which they can then use in completely different situations, for completely different target audiences and completely different brands. The world simply doesn’t work that way’. There’s too much chaos there to be able to use simple rules and apply simple theories. Advertising creatives are blind drivers: some might get you to your destination, most will end up in a ditch leaving you shaken but unhurt and a couple of them will actually crash into something.

Randomness
Hundreds of thousands of new brands emerge very single year, a couple of dozen of those make it into more or less well known global brands and a couple of those every decade will become real A-listers. That’s not cleverness, that’s merely statistic odds. Obviously there are a couple of things you can do to get some better odds for yourself, like ‘make a good product’ or ‘don’t spend too much before you start earning’ and of course, a bit of advertising will be necessary; who will know you’re around. But don’t expect to become very successful by trying to achieve that tipping point; you won’t.

Coke for the brand
Statistics for businesses is different from that in match class, where with every time you achieve success the chance of being successful again decreases. In business, when you’re successful, the chance that you’ll be successful again actually increases. If you combine that with the ‘winner takes it all’ effect (like WalMart destroying all it’s competition, or Microsoft holding the pc market captive) you get a situation where a couple of big brands will hold all the cards and new competitors have no choice but to aim for that hype effect be become successful, most will fail, but some will get lucky and increase their chances for future success. The big brands in the mean time wisely spread their odds. So Coca Cola introduces Coke Zero, which isn’t too risky and they sponsor the Olympics. get lucky once, twice , perhaps three times, then spread the odds…

Google for the brand
An alternative route to take would be to try and do something different. Google is perhaps the biggest example for this. First they took on Yahoo, then switched to Microsoft and perhaps Apple will be next. Google entered a market where they still had good chances; search engines. They become successful because the Google brand got ‘picked up’. With their success they penetrated the online advertising market and now they’re going for the Mobile telephone market (not with a gPhone mind you, but with a Linux approach to Mobile software…) Google never went looking for the Tipping Point, but they found it anyway. They had a good product and (virtual?) street credibility and they turned that into success. No marketing professional needed. What if Google manages to turn the mobile telecommunications market upside down as well? If I were working for Coca Cola, I’d be very very afraid indeed…