To change the world, marketing needs more deviants
Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them, because they push the human race forward.
While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
Apple’s ‘Think Different’ campaign
Best practice has increasingly become common practice. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – but neither is it a recipe for originality and difference. As legendary rockstar Frank Zappa posited, “Without deviance from the norm, progress isn’t possible.”
Marketing people are schooled in the same best practices, with the result that nearly everyone ends up on the same page. Everyone is taught about the importance of purpose, insight, consumer closeness, emotionally-led positioning statements, segmentation, motivating propositions, competitive advantage, customer journeys, brand extension, CRM, promotions, and so on.
This being marketing, there are slight variations on the frameworks used. Various brands and agencies have given their tweaked approach a
new name. But the vast majority of approaches are highly similar. It’s all very sensible and all very reasonable.
But then – as someone who is sometimes known as the director of deviancy – I’m the first to admit that I’m not always reasonable. Indeed, I’m proud of the fact. As George Bernard Shaw wrote: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
I do, however, try to be constructively challenging: not just by asking difficult questions, but by trying to have answers to those questions too. All too often, I’ve found that people in marketing expect originality from those people who have been labeled ‘creatives’; the art directors, copywriters, designers and videographers. Yet I’ve met a lot of strategists who aren’t very creative. They are happy to let the creatives be the creative ones, rather than challenging themselves and questioning their own thinking.
Having seen this play out repeatedly, I’ve spent some considerable time thinking about thinking. I’m a big fan of Daniel Kahneman’s two modes of cognitive processing, as explored in his classic Thinking, Fast and Slow: System 1 thinking is fast, intuitive, requiring little effort, while System 2 thinking is slow, deliberate, requiring intentional effort. But beyond that, I encourage you to think about marketing challenges in at least five ways.
The first is analytical, using logical, structured techniques, often numerical. Second is analogical, which involves the use of – not surprisingly – analogies, but also parallels and metaphors.
Next is historically, learning from the past. I don’t agree that “there is nothing new under the sun” – but nor do I follow the view of some contemporary brands who seem to believe there is nothing to learn from the past.
The fourth way of thinking – one I have a penchant for – is deviant thinking, which is based around challenging, bending or indeed breaking category rules. You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.
Finally, there is random thinking. This is not something you can easily train people in, other than encouraging them to realize that marketers – like the proverbial policeman – are on duty 24 hours a day. It’s about letting your mind wander, allowing it to be jolted out of its normal patterns, and finding random associations.
In short: think different.
Giles Lury is a freelance brand consultant