Comments on: introducing futilemarketing.com

By: Nadia Lewis

Nadia Lewis — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 00:59:52 +0000

You remind me of Bruce Mau:
“Keep moving.The market and its operations have a tendency to reinforce success. Resist it. Allow failure and migration to be part of your practice.”
Sometimes you have to take the ring and head out on the path, even when the ending is most likely firey doom.

By: Phil

Phil — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 00:56:01 +0000

Yes, I kind of get the point Hugh. And there is something about realising it’s futile and doing it anyway.
Technically the examples you mention are (as others have said) ‘seemingly futile’. But the point is that, at their inception, they appeared futile.
In fact most marketing is (statistically) futile because it doesn’t work (at least as the textbooks would have you believe). So the answer is to try things and have fun with them — in the expectation of their almost certain futility.
Then look back in a few years’ time to note, with some surprise, that a few worked!
Now, about that book idea…

By: WebPixie

WebPixie — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 18:31:43 +0000

I think you’re right, Mike (third comment)

By: Keith Handy

Keith Handy — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 16:17:24 +0000

Mike (third comment): I think it's understood by most people who read this post that "futile" is poetic shorthand for "seemingly futile".

By: WebPixie

WebPixie — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 09:54:12 +0000

There's no way to know if I'm thinking what you're thinking, but I love looking at the pictures of what you're thinking. Reading what you're thinking is pretty great too! I'm glad I've subscribed.

By: Janet

Janet — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 14:52:39 +0000

I like your thought process, Hugh. But one I think will not make your list is : “Decide to advertise your product in Green Bay without a Packer endorsement”

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 14:00:55 +0000

Loving the futile vibe — big connection for me with the idea that, in life and in business, it’s the seemingly unimportant conversations that become the important ones over the long term. Or as the saying goes: you are what you eat, but it’s your last 1000 meals that count

By: daniel

daniel — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:44:07 +0000

Depends. If you’re thinking “[that] Resistance is futile” then yes, I am thinking what you are thinking.
Maybe acts that start in futility and end up yielding results should retrospectively be said to have started from an act of fruitility.

By: hugh macleod

hugh macleod — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 07:04:39 +0000

@ Anthony David. Yep, the Hurricane did the work, the Spitfire got the girls
@Thomas I was writing about “Hope & Marketing” LONG before most people had heard of Obama.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 06:50:29 +0000

That that last one about US President didn’t match the rest, but you want buy in from those hope-change buzzfolks so run with it Hugh.

By: Alice Bachini-Smith

Alice Bachini-Smith — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 04:53:09 +0000

yep, wrote a big post about it earlier today, uncannily (“don’t follow the money…”) Rock on, as you say

By: Jeff Schmidt

Jeff Schmidt — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 04:48:35 +0000

Seems like the realization of the single most inspiring bit of HTBC — “Don’t try to stand out from the crowd — avoid crowds entirely”
word

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 03:47:42 +0000

I hate to sound like a buzz-kill, Hugh, but none of the acts that you cite were really futile. They all had a result, although maybe not one that was predicted.
A futile act is one that is pointless — an act that has no possible positive outcome. Yet all of the acts that you cite had a point to begin with, but turned out to be the cause of something completely different and unintentional.
It’s not really an ‘act of futility’ if there was a positive result in the end, regardless of what the result was.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m totally picking up what you’re layin’ down, I’m just not sure that ‘futile’ is the right word for what you’re getting at.
I would posit that you’re after something closer to ‘collateral marketing’ (domain is still available, BTW).

By: Anthony David

Anthony David — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 03:17:44 +0000

Great list. The Hurricane was the quintessentially futile weapon that held its own in the Battle of Britain.

By: michael

michael — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 02:56:26 +0000

Yes, I am thinking that. I’ve been using something similar since my teens.
It’s the “Mom thinks it’ll never work” method.
The motivation of proving Mom wrong makes it that much more fun.