7/13/2011

Godwin's Law For Marketing?



Are you familiar with Godwin's Law? It states that, "as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 100%". One of this law's corollaries takes it a bit further and says that as soon this happens, the conversation is pretty much over, and the person who brought up said Nazis / Hitler has officially lost the argument.

I'd like to propose something similar for the field that I work in, "as a marketing discussion grows longer, the probability of someone bringing up Apple approaches 100%". And I would like to add to this a sub-law which stipulates that the second this happens, everyone is free to leave the meeting, and the person who said it gets a mandatory day off to find some more original examples.

This is not to say that the lovely and talented folks at Apple haven't come up with some brilliant ideas over the years (big fan). But like all humans, they've also had some not-so-great ones, and the fact that it comes from Apple doesn't make it canon for every situation / company / brand / campaign.

Also, I'd like to add one more clause, stating that extra demerit points will be assigned in those cases in which the person giving the example says it in that hindsight-is-twenty-twenty smug tone as if they were the ones who gave the genius idea to Apple in the first place, "You know, the reason Apple made the iPod headphones white was blah, blah, blah".

You don't know. You weren't there ... In the room ... When the decision was made. Money down that if it had been the Zune with white headphones, that same person would be all, "You know the reason that thing didn't move any units, it was those damn white headphones".

At this point, I propose we make the law official with this quote from High Fidelity, "Oh, that's not obvious enough Rob. How about the Beatles? Or fucking ... fucking Beethoven? Side one, track one of the Fifth Symphony ... How can someone with no interest in music own a record store?" (Thank you Jack Black, and thank you IMDB.)