The "Wrong Tail" & The Fallacy Of The Infinite Multitude
The "Wrong Tail" & The Fallacy Of The Infinite Multitude
Every so often, I get this feeling that since there are supposed to be 70 million blogs worldwide, some folks believe there must be a thriving community of people who are passionately talking about a highly specific product category within a highly specific target demographic.
And, out of that slice of the 70 million, there must be at least two dozen blogs written by and for midwestern, Greek-speaking, middle-aged couples who have adopted dyspeptic, polydactyl, twin Samoan infants and are just desperate to buy a carbon-fiber-and-unobtainium tandem stroller to cart them around in. (Household incomes = $120,000+, of course.)
As you've heard me say a few times, "I hate to tell you there's no Easter Bunny, but..."
I've started calling this the Fallacy Of The Infinite Multitude. It's the mindset that festers when a poorly written executive summary of Chris Anderson's The Long Tail lands on the wrong desk. The result sends marketers on a wild goose chase, fueled by the expectation of femto-communities that will kill for your brand, are just waiting to be "activated" like a sleeper cell, and don't require an investment on the organization's part of an honest community engagement effort in order to be effective.
Of course, I'm not saying such communities don't matter. I'm of the opinion that such communities matter very much... when they are, in fact, deemed likely by a reasonable person to actually exist!
Call it "chasing 'The Wrong Tail'" perhaps?
Frankly, marketers are vulgarizing the "Long Tail" concept to rationalize and justify the existence of products, services, and content that no one really wants to markets that might not really be there.
It's like the last few chips in the great Pringles Can Of Marketing: if you stick your hand too far down, you'll get stuck. It's more practical to turn that can upside down.
And, sometimes, as Dante said in Clerks, "Sometimes you gotta let the hard-to-reach ones go."
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long tail, research, word of mouth