Combining Puppets AND People for Better Results
By Jack Mixner
Malcolm Gladwell says that Sesame Street's initial marketing studies showed the show was a bomb - until they combined human sized puppets that could talk with humans, i. e. until they mixed fantasy with reality (Gladwell, page 106). The experts said it would not work. The rest is history. Blues Clues was even better because it used one character at a time, one story line for each show - and half the length. (Gladwell, page 111).You will not get the impact unless you try it. One final key point - measure the results of every new change.
Strategic ImplicationSpend time in your initial strategic analysis to ask, "Where are we?" Then look to see if there are opportunities for change. Make changes carefully, watch which ones work and only then do you implement.
Reference Gladwell, Malcolm. The Tipping Point. Back Bay Books / Little Brown and Company / Time Warner Book Group. 2002.