Marketing expertise from the Hippy Dippy Weatherman

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Marketing expertise from the Hippy Dippy Weatherman.

June 25th, 2008

Sad news this week. Groundbreaking comedian George Carlin died of heart failure Sunday evening at age 71.

Carlin was the rare performer who rose far above the flavor-of-the-month-American-Idol-vanilla mentality so prevalent in entertainment today. In looking back at his body of work, it becomes obvious that the fundamentals of what made three generations of audiences appreciate his humor aren’t that much different than what it takes to successfully market just about any product. With apologies to George for over-simplifying his brilliance, here is what today’s marketers may learn from The Hippy Dippy Weatherman:

Realize your audience is made up of some pretty smart people. Don’t assume you know more than they do. Even if you do, you don’t want them to know that you do, because nothing turns people off more than being talked down to.
Refine your routine to fit your audience. Carlin was one of the pioneers at evolving material to not only fit his audience, but also the times. Loado humor might have played well in ’69, but not so much in ‘08.
Don’t be afraid to polarize people. How far do you think Carlin would have gotten by going out of his way to not offend anyone? Be who you know you are, even knowing that not everybody is going to “get you.” In entertainment or marketing, it’s important that you create a following, and to get there, you need to get people to take a stand, often to the point where they either love you or hate you. In the people who love you, you’ll have customers for life. Those who hate you? They probably would never have bought anything from you anyway. (Do you think the biddies who convinced Milwaukee police to arrest Carlin in 1972 would have ever gone to his show?)
Stay true to your Brand Vision. Even though Carlin’s comedy evolved many time over since the 1960’s, his Brand Vision stayed the same. Here, we’ll define it as “Cutting-edge comic.” Having a meaningful Brand Vision doesn’t mean never doing anything differently; it just means that when people think of you, they’ll think of your vision, regardless of circumstances.

As always, the forecast for this evening…is dark.