At HK$6,000 (US$774) each, tickets did not come cheap, but the exorbitant price did not stop (by my count) roughly 250 attendees turning up to hear him.
Gladwell has been a popular writer in the media and marketing industry since his book The Tipping Point, which described how small ideas can suddenly and unexpectedly take on a life of their own. It has become a must-read for viral marketers.
Gladwell has been a popular writer in the media and marketing industry since his book The Tipping Point, which described how small ideas can suddenly and unexpectedly take on a life of their own. It has become a must-read for viral marketers.
So what could he teach us now, at a time of turmoil in the marketing industry? The second half of his talk was devoted to the financial crisis. Only, he didn’t actually talk about the financial crisis. Instead, he talked for about an hour on the Battle of Chancellorsville, a conflict from the US Civil War. The battle’s outcome, he argued, hinged on information. The army of the North, under the leadership of Joseph ‘Fighting Joe’ Hooker, had far more information than that of the South; so impressive was its intelligence-gathering that Hooker knew as much about the South’s army as its own leader, Robert E Lee.
Yet Hooker lost. He lost spectacularly. Lee’s army managed to overcome a colossal tactical disadvantage and force the North to retreat. Both the Battle of Chancellorsville and the financial crisis, says Gladwell, are examples of the “illusion of control”. This is a phenomenon whereby more information makes us no better at decision-making, but makes us more confident about the decisions we make. The problem is that overconfidence in our decisions means we do not consider alternatives. In Hooker’s case, he was so confident in his tactics, based on his superior intelligence, that he refused to believe Lee had a chance.
The illusion of control has all sorts of implications in the media world. For a start, the entire newspaper industry seems to have suffered from overconfidence based on the apparent solidity of its business model, blinding itself to the threat posed by online. But for marketers, it is something to bear in mind as they raise their budgets in online media.
As our Live Issue on CRM points out, the internet is providing brands with all sorts of new data, allowing firms in sectors such as FMCG to get much closer to their customers. Of course, this is great news, especially in a recession. But the more they do online, the more data they will receive. The question they need to ask is at what point all this extra information will cease to make any significant improvement to issues such as segmentation and budget allocation. And could brands become so confident they know their customers that they leave themselves open to attack? It’s an old cliché that what gets measured gets done. But as Hooker found out, sometimes too much measurement can be a bad thing.
Got a view?
Email David.tiltman@media.asia
This article was originally published in 13 August 2009 issue of Media.
