Unpopular popularity

"Nobody goes there anymore, its too crowded" is one of my favorite 'Yogis', so named for the famed Yankees catcher who is perhaps as famed for his unique turn of phrase as his play on the field.

In a study released by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, however, we find that, once again, there is a lot of truth to what Yogi Berra has to say. The study illustrates that the fall of an item or style in popularity mirrors its rise to popularity, so that items that become popular faster also die out faster.

These, my friends, are called fads. The study's authors were quoted as saying that “While it is easy to see products, ideas, or behaviors catch on in popular culture, less in known about why such things become unpopular." And this question is as critical a question to marketers as any.

In a cross-cultural, non-commercial study that harkens to Levitt's book Freakonomics, study authors Berger and Le Mens analyzed baby names in France and the US over the past century. The two researchers found a consistency in the rise and fall of given names - that the longer it took for a name to become common, the longer it took for the name to fall out of use. Parents interviewed indicated that they were simply unwilling to risk saddling their child with a name they perceived as 'faddish'.

For marketers, these results indicate that it is the perception of a trend that makes the creation of a fad self-fulfilling. While somewhat intuitive, there is often no scarcity or other economic factor that forces certain trends that 'hockey stick' in popularity to die out faster. Instead, the concept of 'the harder they fall' is based in the idea that people, for all their concern about fitting in, don’t want to be seen as following the herd. The key is perhaps in not controlling the growth, but in marketing the message - even as sales rise without apparent assistance from 'those guys in marketing' - that the growth is because of the value offered by the fast-growing product or service, and not transient fads.

And that will mean that in addition to trying something, marketing will keep people coming back, even as it gets more crowded.

Sir Edmund Hillary, RIP

Sir Edmund Hillary, who in 1953 was the first Western man to summit Everest (his Nepalese Sherpa, Tenzing Norgay, should never go unrecognized) died today.

Many might suggest that he wasn’t the first person to summit Everest, that that honor arguably belongs to George Leigh Mallory, who died in the attempt in 1924. But as significant as Mallory’s attempt was, it is important to remember that the rule for summiting is that a successful effort is measured less by reaching the summit as by the safe return afterward. So it is in mountaineering as in business, the greatest leaders are trailblazers known as much for their own accomplishments as the opportunities they create for others, the imagination they spark in us, and the possibilities they inspire among us all.

It is hard to imagine that the tallest peak on earth was conquered only as recently as just 55 years ago. But almost as proof of the impact of Hillary's pioneering spirit on others, it is perhaps even more difficult to comprehend that the moon was conquered a mere 15 years after Hillary’s summit here on terra firma. I would suggest that the indomitable spirit of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay certainly fed the spirit of our space program as much - as if not more - than the competition we felt from the Russian launch of Sputnik.

Just as Hillary had his moment, business leaders today have an opportunity to leave their mark on history – but they should also learn from that humble New Zealand beekeeper that the larger impact they can make is through leading by example, taking risks and inspiring their team toward their own, as Jim Collins (Built To Last) would have it, “Big Hairy Audacious Goal”.

As George Mallory proved, driven men are remembered for the risks they take and the accomplishments the master. But it was Sir Edmund Hillary who proved that leadership is not only about reaching the peak, but about coming down off the mountain, and by doing so, showing others the way and encouraging them toward their own personal summits.