Ernst Mach, was an Austrian Philosopher and Physicist. He lived from 1838 to 1916. His principle proposed the idea that “mass there influences inertia here.” That means that the gravity of far away things affects how nearby things move. Thus motion is only meaningful when measured against another object. For example, we know the earth is spinning because we can measure it relative to the stars. Without the stars, or some other point of reference, motion would be meaningless. Because Mass is the critical factor in motion, and every object in the universe is pulling on every other object, true motion can only be determined by examining mass.
[ Albert Einstein seemed to view Mach’s principle as something along the lines of:
“…inertia originates in a kind of interaction between bodies…“[3] ] — wikipedia
So what does this mean to marketing? How can you take the principles of a 19th Century Scientist and apply them to the modern discipline of Marketing? What is the analogy?
On an aside, please stay away from “this is the guy that the Mach 3 razor is named after.” While this is a pretty easily demonstrable way that Mach impacted Marketing, lets stick with Mach’s principle this week.
Please educate me. Drop some science knowledge and leave your comments.
Mach’s principle — Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
OK Doctor–
There are two factors here to consider:
1) the importance of critical mass in markets: cell phones wouldn’t be possible if you didn’t have a ton of subscribers. The cost of supplying cell signals to one client would make the costs astronomical. Without the ability to have critical mass– you wouldn’t have a market.
2) The movement of a competitor can set your business in motion. Again looking at cell phones– Apple’s introduction of the iPhone forced every other cell maker, and service provider, to rethink their offering and change the way they approached the handset and the delivery of services.
Both of these examples apply to big markets– that are still maturing. However, if one looks at the soda market, you’ll see that juice, energy and branded and fortified water have been eating away at the cola dominated markets slowly and steadily– so you may have a third axiom:
3) That any large market will be interesting to niche marketers that can scrape off just enough to be profitable, but not a threat. Steve Jobs coyly said his goal was 1% of the handset market, which the iPhone is well on it’s way to having plus more.
How’s that for a start to your Physics of marketing?
Love it.
I think the competitive part of marketing is very applicable here. For example, a firm enjoying 7% annual growth may view itself as doing well, Meanwhile if the industry growth rate for that market that is at 20% they may be gone tomorrow. Motion has no meaning without some point of reference.
I love the iPhone example. It was not long ago that the Razr from Motorola was the rage. It was everywhere. Enter the iPhone, and overnight it was irrelevant. Hence, Motorola is laying off thousands of people today.
iPhone is also great in that it did exert considerable force on the market as a whole. It has made AT&T a legitimate player, and shifted power — at least for now — away from the carrier. Who knows for how long?
Thanks David. Great Comments — as I would expect from you.
Something else I was thinking about with regard to Mach. The idea of the web as a marketing tool seems to be very analogous. Especially with regard to search. Clearly there are sites that exert considerable gravity, pulling in traffic from all around the web. Still, in the interconnected world of the internet, all sites are linked to one another and can affect one another as a result. Memes and concepts that are produced elsewhere in the world can evolve, grow, and then find their way into my consciousness — forever changing my perception of the world. A site unknown to me today, could be my favorite site tomorrow — and the favorite of a billion others. As new ideas are created and spread, the relative importance of everything else on the web is altered — a process that is constantly happening.
Anyone care to connect the dots further?
While I can’t offer much in the marketing department, I will use my psuedo smarts to chime in on the physics. If anything, it has stimulated some thought in me.
It turns out that Einstein actually proved Mach to be wrong. One comment in the original post that lead me to dig further was ‘Thus motion is only meaningful when measured against another object’. This is one problem that Einstein addressed with his Theory of Relativity. Einstein took Mach’s idea of matter and motion and showed that even in an empty universe, a body in motion would be able to sense motion.
What is important is that Einstein used Mach’s ideas to come to a greater, more correct solution. Although disproven, Mach’s theory was incorporated, and here’s where the link to marketing may follow. In science and marketing, one person (or entity’s) new line of thinking stimulates new thoughts and growth potential that transcends even what the original theorist had in mind.
As an aside, whether you meant to or not, your most recent post (on 4/7) contains 3 principles of Quantum mechanics that you may want to consider for future weeks’ discussions:
(1) The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
(2) Entanglement
(3) Shrodinger’s Cat Experiment
Very difficult to grasp on a physical level (at least for me), but probably very applicable to the world of marketing.
Geoff,
Thanks for joining in the discussion. Much of the purpose of this series is to stimulate thought, so even if I get the physics partially wrong, if conversation happens, I am headed in the right direction. That is even more true when the conversation yields greater understanding. Perhaps this is analogous to Mach and Einstein as you describe their relationship. Furthering that, my understanding is that they both sought out to prove that much of what Newton said was not right. Still, neither would have been able to gain that level of understanding with Newton. This fits in well with the book Creativity that I referenced in the initial post in the series. Creativity requires a domain that is accepted as truth. It is through challenging the validity of that domain, that creativity happens. Thus Einstien needed Mach who needed Newton, etc.
I continue to think about Mach with regard to the web. I was considering the idea of customer satisfaction and product quality. How many unsatisfied users, each with their own “gravity” to exert enough mass to create change or destroy a company for its actions. More specifically, how can the web amplify negative word of mouth. It used to be that consumers had little in the way of creating change. The power was held by large corporations. While that is still true in some areas, the web has helped to illustrate the fact that all things exert gravity on all other things. Choosing to talk positively about something ( a product, service, or company) , talk negatively about something, or not talk about something at all has an impact. The web amplifies these conversations. This interrelated nature of the world is a key consideration for marketing professionals today.
I will need to do some research on the other 3 principles you referenced. If they are not in the book I am using to guide this discussion, I will find a way to add them in.
Please keep chiming in with your thoughts. I value them tremendously.
David,
I also was intellectually stimulated the article and comments. Having studied physics extensively before deciding that changing human behavior through communications/marketing was more challenging, I first want to say that I’m excited about this discussion in general.
Now, to your point about each scientist needing the others before him…that is a true testament to the Mach principle. This is one area where I think if you were to apply Einstein’s theory of relativity, that Mach might actually be a better fit.
Yes, you can create ideas in a “vacuum.” However, the creation and resulting ideas usually don’t stand the test of time. It is subsequent creation and ideas that challenge the original that grow in strength and validity. Exponentially.
The downfall is that I don’t believe creativity will ever reach a critical mass and begin to regress the way the Mach principle predicts. Or at least I hope it never does!
I’m not sure I can contribute much from the web perspective, but I want to just also add that the Mach principle is especially relevant to measuring outcomes of communication/marketing activity.
Without knowing where everything in the environment around you stands in relation to pre-campaign, during campaign and post campaign, it is difficult to determine whether any change was affected and what the true change was/is. In a vacuum it would be easy, but unrealistic. (Don’t worry, though, Einstein is still my hero!)
I look forward to your next installment!