As Seth Godin points out in his excellent book Purple Cow, the first instinct of people who want to market a product, or themselves, is to find a concept to copy. Sometimes people try to combine several concepts, creating a mixed pizza topping that’s unpalatable as it is confusing. If the fundamental objective of marketing is to differentiate yourself from the competition, surely that requires you to do be distinctive.
In any event, the notion of a winning formula is intrinsically flawed. Even if a concept has been successful, it’s unlikely to work again in a different context. And because you can’t copy an concept in every detail, you end up with a fudge. You can be inspired by other people’s ideas, you can emulate their guts and originality, you can try to do things the way they do them but not how they do them.
Given the majority of your marketing will be conducted online, the need for originality and creativity becomes even greater. As Seth Godin points out, you are not trying to reach the conservative middle or late majorities and especially not the laggards. The value is to be found among the early adopters. These are the switched on types who will blog and tweet and make comments on forums. These are the people who are most likely to recommend your product and least likely to be impressed by second hand concepts. So whether it’s for a video or a website or any other form of marketing communication, don’t look for something to copy. Try to stand out from the crowd. Here’s a website I produced for a financial advisor which is a just a little bit different: Ride The Storm Ltd
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