It's hard to make business decisions based solely on gut instinct. Especially these days... We are all accountable for everything, we can measure almost anything and we can get consumer feedback instantaneously. These are great things, but they come with a price too: when it comes to innovation and game-changing ideas we risk data pushing ourselves away from greatness. We must remain open to listening to our gut sometimes because it's often the wisest tool around.
Easier said than done, I know. But I recently finished 20 Ads that Shook the World and learned that if you ever need a handy example to support a gut decision that everyone can relate to, cite Absolut Vodka.
The ads are iconic by everyone's standards. Together, TBWA and Carillon Importers created a movement that changed the industry by taking a little known vodka and propelling it to #1 with a 10% market share. And they never tested the concept. Never did any research about the ads. And throughout the 28 or so years that the campaign ran, they never experimented*. They just knew they had something great. And while TBWA evolved the campaign in 2006, the spirit lives on... ("New Orleans" is still my favorite.)
My guess: should these ads have been put in front of consumers before they ran, people would have said they wanted "more information about the product" because that's what liquor advertising was in 1981. Shaking things up to only show the bottle and a two-word headline was a significant change.
But we loved it. And we looked at advertising a little bit differently after that.
So cheers to the innovators who spend less time asking what we want and more time just doing things!
Over the years we've said that we don't want to abandon our CDs for digital music, that we don't understand why someone would ever buy an SUV for city driving, that we can't imagine abandoning film for digital pictures and that we don't want to be reachable everywhere we go! Most recently, many of us can't fathom trading in books for e-book readers. Just wait. As it turns out, innovators know us better than we know ourselves sometimes.
So despite all the tools out there, don't be afraid to go with your gut when you feel stongly about something. And most importantly, don't let the opinions of a few people you don't even know second guess or pick apart an idea you wholeheartedly believe in.
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