I guess it's the theme this week. A couple of posts back, I wrote about new stuff, and moving clients toward trying new things. Then, today, via the AdAge newsletter (rarely a source of new stuff, but hey, go figure...), they point to Bill Wasik's serialized essay in Harper's about Flash Crowds - the phenomenon he invented as an experiment. Then, lo and behold, Seth writes about the Authentic Fringe - the left side of the bell curve. Go, read, and grab the bell curve pic on Seth's blog.
For me, the Wasik piece completely illustrates the motivation behind my point #4 about new stuff: What's new now, won't be soon. There will be something newer. Sooner than you think.
Too often, agencies embrace whatever is new and hip, simply because it's new and hip. That's not a good enough reason.
My personal beliefs about agency adoration of the hipster crowd is that it's based in the notion that most people in most agencies, especially creative people, are either part of, or see themselves as part of, that hipster crowd.
The thing is, the hipsters are further up the bell curve than they think. Once something is truly hip, it's been embraced by enough people to bring it way, way right of the true left - the Authentic Fringe. Here are a couple of examples:
Example one: When I was at the University of Georgia, it was during the birth of the music scene there. The B-52's were just barely becoming a band that people outside of Athens had heard of, and R.E.M. was just forming. I have a weird degree that allowed me to, basically, split my time three ways - Journalism School, Art School, and the College of Agriculture. I was in a fraternity. Many of my friends were Art Majors, and were really into the music scene. The art majors hated the frat boys. The frat boys hated the art majors. I was friends with both, because, well, I was in both tribes. (I was in the Ag tribe, too, but soybean futures don't enter into this point.) In a discussion one day with some art friends, I asked them why they hated the frats so much, and one of them explained: "They have no individuality. Look at them. They all wear khakis, and button-downs, and Topsiders. They all look the same." Of course every person in that art studio was wearing mostly black, had on Chuck Taylors, and more than one thing from a thrift store - and every single girl had over-dyed henna hair. Different tribe. Different uniform. But still a uniform, accepted by plenty - though slightly fewer than the uniform accepted by the frat guys. The edge? Hardly.
Example two: When you live and/or work in Manhattan, especially if you work in advertising or film production, you spend an unfathomable amount of time discussing where you're going to eat. I have never, ever, encountered a culture so obsessed with restaurant reservations. Menus are pored over, and there are lengthy discussions about garnishes and sauces, mostly by people who know almost nothing about garnishes and sauces. The greatest achievement one can possibly....um...achieve, is to introduce a brand-new, ultra-hip, never-ever-ever discovered restaurant into consideration, have it accepted, and approved by the tribe. So, my question is - how come it's always hard to get a reservation? If it's really all that new, how come so many people already know about it?
I must admit, having only ever qualified as a short-term New Yorker, I truly love taking Manhattan residents to little dives they've walked past a thousand times without entering. Rarely are the places I take them new, or hip. None of them will ever make the list for consideration. But the food is really good.
The point of all this (getting there now), is that what's new and hip is also fleeting. Sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's not. But it is always fleeting. Because if, in fact, it turns out to be good, lots of people will find out about it, and it won't be hip anymore. Knowing (or making an educated guess) how far along that bell curve the thing already is, will help you figure out how long the newness is going to last.
Before you jump quickly to something you think is on the edge - take a look at the real number of people who also think that thing is on the edge. The more there are, the less the thing is truly on the edge. Which means, very soon, more and more people are going to be using whatever it is.
Bottom line: New is new. Good is good. Sometimes, something can be both. But good is the more important of the two.
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