johnmoore of Brand Autopsy referred to a NY Times article in his post, Harvesting Collective Genius. The article outlines how Rite-Solutions uses an internal stock exchange for the submission of ideas in which employees invest part of their allocated $10k fantasy funds. johnmoore also quotes from the book, Ideas are Free, mentioning the ideal that small ideas are more likely to be implemented than big ideas.
Beyond that, johnmoore’s post gave me cause to consider something. By combining the ideals of Rite-Solutions and Ideas are Free, he has created a more powerful concept. If this creation comes about by merging two similar, yet differing, concepts… would it work by merging others together as well?
I call this Marketing Mindset Mashup.
Let’s try it out on a few other examples:
Permission Marketing + Purple Cow
With permission marketing, you typically create a promotion which entices people to sign up and request your marketing in trade for the opportunity to gain/win something. Add the concept of Purple Cow and either your promotion, your means of collecting information or your means of communication is so unorthodox that people stop dead in their tracks to check it out (if you’re really good, all three areas are purple cows).
Viral Marketing + Traditional Advertising
Next time you shoot a series of traditional broadcast commercials, you shoot 2-3 extra (and extremely viral) ads that go on your website or YouTube or enter an email stream. They never enter the traditional media market. (example: Powerade)
Edgecrafting + Cause Marketing
The business world is in no shortage of sponsoring great causes and events. Typically though, companies attach themselves to very well-known or broadly affecting causes. But by applying edgecrafting, you look for causes that are relevant to fewer people. Though smaller in number, these people are extremely loyal because they may see the organization with which you sponsor/collaborate as the only one that understands them.
Now the idea of Marketing Mindset Mashup is nothing new. We do this all the time naturally. We take parts of this idea and merge it with that idea. What it DOES do is cause you to be intentional in merging mindsets, allowing you to increase the impact of your efforts.
If you have a Marketing Mindset Mashup idea, write a comment about it. If you have a blog, better yet, post about it.