The Passion Pop Curve

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

This comes from the blog of marketing guru Seth Godin - the full post is here and here's the curve:



"The reason you need to care is that gap in the middle. Every day, millions of businesses get stuck in that gap. They either move to the right in search of the masses or move to the left in search of authenticity, but they compromise. And they get stuck with neither.

A delta blues guy who plays for tiny audiences in Memphis is in the sweet spot of the passionate. John Mayer is in the sweet spot of pop. Both are great guitarists, neither is too edgy or too trite. Both made a choice. But there are a thousand guitarists who are neither. They're afraid to embrace one curve or the other and end up with neither."

Presented (for now) without comment. Over to you!

Comments

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

eh? how is "obsessed" on the same continuum as "trite"? what does the x-axis actually measure?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The X Axis I think is measuring both accessibility of output and commitment of producer.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

those should certainly be on different axes!! (unless commitment means just "commitment to accessibility")

and this is only an interresting graph if (assuming the x-axis can be salvaged with the correct unit), you had a time z-axis observing how those bumps perhaps converge during some eras (mid-60s?) OR EVEN CROSS OVER

(i haven't looked at the piece yet -- perhaps he talks about this)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yes Godin's assumption that there is a direct (inverse) correlation between the two is one of the more startling implications of his argument!

(Actually "accessibility" isn't quite right either. Do you know, I think he's using the X Axis to represent "authenticity"!)

He talks about changes over time but not in such an interesting way: he says (possibly in the follow-up post) that the "passion" curve changes all the time, but I think he means it as a handwave to let post-facto rationalisation do all the work of 'proving' his ideas.

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

I had it down as some sort of 'credibility-as-viewed-by-S.Godin' axis.
You can't really bundle accessibility to consumer and commitment of artist into a single variable unless you already have an ideological stance that automatically pits one against the other.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I don't even get who the 'obsessed' bit refers to - the artist? the consumer?

also 'vapid' and 'trite' are both value judgments (and surely unquantifiable) whereas 'obsessed' and possibly 'edgy' (if it's measuring 'how cutting edge or fashionable something is') are definite measurable things? BUH?

also 'edgy' and 'obsessed' are two concepts which have nothing to do with each other!!!