The Long Tail
I attended a talk by Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More". His book basically talks about how the blockbuster products (e.g. coke and platinum music albums) are no longer going to be what businesses are banking on primarily for revenues. Rather, with product proliferation that serves many niches (e.g. Jones soda and the zillion types of eclectic music out there) the pie is increasing by offering more types of products but sales contribution from each slice of the pie may be rather small.
Since this is the age when people are made to feel that they are special, where products are increasing personalized and customized (e.g. photo books, self-named sodas, self-designed sneakers, etc.), the challenge nevertheless lies in how firms will market all of these niche products in a world cluttered with advertising messages.
Unless we figure out a way to use more than 10% of our current brain power, the human limitation of making sense of information (which requires consolidating information into familiar, bite-size "blockbuster" categories) and digesting it all for recall (usually top 3 brands or categories) may in fact result in coming right back to where we started -- blockbuster products.
This may all be the cycle of business (similar to the big bang theory of creation of the universe), just like like how mini-skirts and the retro-look are all the rage in latter days when, all things considered, they are simply rehashed fashion from decades ago. So much for ingenuity!
Since this is the age when people are made to feel that they are special, where products are increasing personalized and customized (e.g. photo books, self-named sodas, self-designed sneakers, etc.), the challenge nevertheless lies in how firms will market all of these niche products in a world cluttered with advertising messages.
Unless we figure out a way to use more than 10% of our current brain power, the human limitation of making sense of information (which requires consolidating information into familiar, bite-size "blockbuster" categories) and digesting it all for recall (usually top 3 brands or categories) may in fact result in coming right back to where we started -- blockbuster products.
This may all be the cycle of business (similar to the big bang theory of creation of the universe), just like like how mini-skirts and the retro-look are all the rage in latter days when, all things considered, they are simply rehashed fashion from decades ago. So much for ingenuity!
Comments