Is It What You Say or How You Say It?
March 15th, 2007 by Jeb Foster
One of the great things about uber-successful blogger Seth Godin is his ability to draw marketing lessons from the unlikeliest of sources.
His latest insight comes from listening to Neil Young’s Live at Massey Hall album. Godin observes (1) that the crowd cheers the loudest when Neil sings the oldies and (2) that Neil strains more and sings louder to make the crowd like his newer tunes–but to no avail.
No surprise, the crowd likes the old ‘crowd-pleasers’ more than the new stuff, which hasn’t been vetted by the test of time. No amount of extra stage effort, Godin says, will make the crowd instantly come around to the new songs. That’s true. But the lesson Godin derives from this fact is counter-intuitive, and I’m not sure I agree with it: “It’s what you say, most of the time, not how you say it.”
Ok. I’ll concede this to Godin: In terms of exposing your fan base to new songs (or your customers to new products and ideas), maybe you’ll never instantly win them over, even if it’s a great song/idea and you pour every ounce of your soul into the performance/delivery/marketing. The crowd will still get more excited over even a half-hearted replay of an old favorite.
Godin also acknowledges this truism: the oldies weren’t always oldies. All of the classics were once played to skeptical audiences who would’ve rather heard the old standbys. Truth is, innovation scares people. They will resist it. They won’t cheer loudly for it at first. But if the innovation is something you really believe in and you’re passionate in your delivery, then they’ll probably come around.
Back toGodin’s lesson: “It’s what you say, most of the time, not how you say it.” I still don’t know if I agree with that. Sometimes it really is all in the delivery. If you’re not passionate when you belt out the new tunes, the chances that they’ll catch on and become classics are even smaller.
[Photo from Flickr]
