Nick Hornby vs The Superbowl

So one of the reasons for me not posting last week, apart from putting in 12 hour days at the office, was because last weekend I bought the book High Fidelity by Nick Hornby and have been at least partially buried in it all week. The movie version, which I also own, came out about 7 years ago and has become a cult classic. It ranks as one of my favourites. Incidentally, I also have the soundtrack on my iPod.

What does this say about me? Well, firstly I’d like to think it says that I have a finely tuned ear for good music and cult/pop culture. But sadly, I know too many people (much cooler than me) who would be right to disagree with that.

Apart from that, it’s an interesting testament to the power of fringe markets. It underlines something Godin said in Purple Cow “the mainstream doesn’t buy products, the fringes do”. Man, do they! Well, kind of. They don’t buy products, they buy brands, a big difference but my point still stands.

From my point of view, marketing a brand to a niche market becomes so much more easier online than through massive media. While massive media can give a brand message great reach it becomes very difficult to target those communications to a specific target or niche. Online and interactive has exactly the opposite problem. The reach of online communications will never be as great as that of television, but, those that you do reach will most definitely be a lot closer to your niche target.

I guess those points were really underlined for me this weekend as I was watching the Superbowl and the multi-million dollar advertising productions that accompany it.

I also began to think that in a time of worrying about a possible recession and financial problems in the year to come, how it makes so much more sense to use less expensive targeted online and digital experiences to reach those specific niche markets than those entertaining but generic multimillion dollar 30 second Superbowl spots.