“BIG” — Marketing, how is this fun?
Do you all remember one of Tom Hanks best movies called “BIG”?
Well, I do, on a daily basis whenever I see advertisements, catch phrases, product. And I sometimes wonder what did they think when they came up with that idea. This article is not about something in particular, just some random thoughts that I’d like to share to make you the reader think about your own strategies and behaviour.
In the movie BIG Tom Hanks played 12 year old Josh Baskin who as a kid felt left out, too short to get on a carnival ride, trying to impress an older girl he had feelings for. So he found this Zoltar fortune telling machine and he wished to be BIG. The next morning when he woke up he indeed was big, which caused problems at home his family would not understand and he left home. On his own now he had to find a place to stay and get a job. He ended up marketing toys. What was so refreshing was that even though Josh (Tom Hanks) was now a grown up on the outside he remained a child inside. Pure in his heart free from thoughts that form you becoming an adult. And here is my point. In real life we listen to teachers, the mainstream thoughts, the environment, leaders, we listen, we copy, we follow, we don’t question. We think what we do is right because we believe what we learned and so we end up making decisions what we think will be successful because a marketing survey told us so, our studies in college told us to and so on. Until you find out it doesn’t work as expected, and maybe it is not what the people want. Could it be because YOU wanted it? Did you listen to those paid product testers that lied to you because they got paid and did not want to offend you, your company? Did you listen to a 1000 person survey that 99% of those gave you a similar answer, are you just too smart and thought your idea must be the right one and everybody has to agree, and because you are in charge nobody speaks up afraid to lose their jobs? That’s when in the movie Josh spoke up with his childish pureness and asked “what is fun about this product, I don’t understand.” He with his state of mind still being a child knew how a kid would feel about a toy, which made him successful. He wasn’t formed by the public, the general consensus.
Think about it!
Volker C., StarWars-Figuren.com
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