The Physics of Marketing — Snell’s Law

Wille­brord Snel­lius saw the light.  Well actu­ally he saw the light do funny things, and then went on to describe why it was so.  The out­put was Snell’s Law, which describes how light trav­els at dif­fer­ent speeds through dif­fer­ent sub­stances.  Ever won­der why that drink­ing straw looks dif­fer­ent in the glass of water than it does above the glass —   Snell’s Law.  How about why on hot sum­mer day there appear to be pud­dles of water on the road off in the dis­tance, yet when you get to where they seem­ingly were you find noth­ing but blaz­ing hot asphalt — again Snell.  It is all about refrac­tion, or how light bends.

Dif­fer­ent mate­ri­als have dif­fer­ent refrac­tive indices, mean­ing that light trav­els at dif­fer­ent speeds through every­thing.  A high refrac­tive index indi­cates that light bends a lot as it passes through.  Con­versely a low index means that light moves more quickly.

So how does this idea apply to Mar­ket­ing?  Well there are about 50 ways to go with this one.  I am choos­ing to go with the fol­low­ing, but encour­age you to choose one of the oth­ers and leave a com­ment.  So here goes my take.

In mar­ket­ing, there is often the con­cept of the great idea.  You know what I mean… “How about we try __”  or “What if we make ____”  Inter­nally a few peo­ple dis­cuss the idea, and quickly it turns into a prod­uct.  Note that for this exam­ple we are going to assume that this idea makes its way through the process of becom­ing an actual prod­uct or ser­vice — most never get that far.

Okay, so the idea hits the mar­ket in the form of a prod­uct and it is a huge dis­as­ter.  What hap­pened?  We thought it would be great.  It did every­thing we wanted.  Every­one will love it.  We knew it would work. One prob­lem.  The con­sumer, or at least the one’s whom you approached, did not want it.  Things are received dif­fer­ently by dif­fer­ent peo­ple just as light moves dif­fer­ently through dif­fer­ent sub­stances.  So mak­ing the right thing for the right peo­ple matters.

Suc­cess­ful mar­keters real­ize this prin­ci­pal and attempt to use this to their advan­tage.  For a prod­uct to become suc­cess­ful, mar­keters must find the inno­va­tors and early adopters for their idea.  Tar­get them.  Talk to them.  Find out if they are influ­en­tial with oth­ers.  Sat­isfy their needs.  Daz­zle them.

Again, these ideas spread at dif­fer­ent speeds.  Suc­cess­fully get­ting through the inno­va­tors and early adopters moves you into the early major­ity of peo­ple.  This group is slower to respond, but just might come around with some coax­ing from the other two groups.  This process might then con­tinue onward through the late major­ity of buy­ers and into the lag­gards before your idea is replaced by another.  As the pool of peo­ple spreads, your idea becomes more com­mon­place, and the impres­sion it makes dis­torts from the orig­i­nal image.

Again, the key is to real­ize who you are try­ing to tar­get, how their response may be dif­fer­ent from oth­ers in the mar­ket, and what the impli­ca­tions of those dif­fer­ences might be.  Mak­ing some­thing for every­one from the start is a sure­fire way to fail.  Mak­ing some­thing remark­able for a few peo­ple, who might decide to share their pas­sion for your idea with the world is a much bet­ter choice.

How would you use Snell’s Law in the con­text of Mar­ket­ing?  There is cer­tainly some­thing out there along the “Things are not always what they seem / All Mar­keters Are Liars” angle.  (Seth Godin, if you read this, please share a thought with us.)  There could be some­thing along the lines of the Pete Black­shaw “An Angry Cus­tomer Tells 3,000 Peo­ple” angle of what hap­pens when you buy that water pud­dle and actu­ally get hot air. (Pete, if you read this,  please share a thought with us.)   Or maybe you have a com­pletely fresh take to add.  Give it a shot and leave a com­ment. (Please share a thought with us.)