• People who can spread ideas win.
• The old ways of interruption marketing is over. Consumers have more choices and less time so they just ignore stuff.
• What determines what gets noticed is: is it remarkable? Is it worth talking about? Is it worth making a remark about?
• Sell the people who are listening and maybe they’ll tell their friends.
• Figure out what people want and give it to them.
• The riskiest thing you can do now is to be safe. The safest place is to be on the fringes.

Seth Godin at TED Sliced Bread and Other Marketing Delights

Wikipedia offers this summary of Godin’s views:

First, the end of the “TV-Industrial complex” means that marketers no longer have the power to command the attention of anyone they choose, whenever they choose.

Second, in a marketplace in which consumers have more power, marketers must show more respect; this means no spam, no deceit and a bias for keeping promises.

Finally, Godin asserts that the only way to spread the word about an idea is for that idea to earn the buzz by being remarkable. Godin refers to those who spread these ideas as “Sneezers”, and to the ideas so spread as an “IdeaVirus.” He calls a remarkable product or service a purple cow. Yahoo! currently has a model of a purple cow in the lobby of its Sunnyvale campus.

Advertisements on television and radio are classified as ‘interruption marketing’, which interrupt the customer while he is doing something of his preference.

Godin introduced the concept of “permission marketing” where the business provides something of value to the customer and thus obtains his permission and then does marketing.

Seth Godin’s blog is a treasure. A recent post, Three Things You Need If You Want More Customers is typical of how he boils what seem to be complex marketing issues down to something so simple that it becomes obvious. What a great talent.

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