What is a meatball sundae?

I attended a webcast called How Do You Avoid the Meatball Sundae presented by  Seth Godin (sponsored by ClickZ Network and BuzzLogic). I try to catch  Seth Godin whenever I can, because he is such a great story teller, totally inspirational, and I always learn something new (like a tool called  Jott)!

Seth was talking about his new book Meatball Sundae.  He started off by saying that he was vegetarian so the idea of a meatball sundae is especially repulsive, but the image being repulsive to everyone was the point. The meatball represented how companies operated in the past (and still do), by creating average products for average people. He is referring to factories, mass production of products, where efficiency is king (industrial revolution). You can view the meatballs as commodities. He also mentioned how advertising such as TV commercials were used to promote and market these products. Companies made average products for average people and used TV to get their message across. In order for TV advertising to work, you had to make an average product that appealed to the masses. The topping part is new marketing (web 2.0) or the new trends in marketing.  So take a commodity, marketing dresses it up using new tactics, and what comes out the door is a meatball sundae.  Not exactly very appealing (a representation of why it doesn't work).

Seth said that there is a lot of opportunity in the new world of marketing but you can't just throw new marketing 2.0 stuff on top of an average product to be more successful. Companies that have been successful with new marketing, are inherently different companies (compared to meatball makers). Darren Barefoot took  great notes on the specific trends and examples presented in the webinar.

If meatball sundaes sound like what goes on in your company and you find that disturbing, you might want to check out the book - Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing out of Sync. You can also download the related manifesto from ChangeThis. ChangeThis is a wonderful place to find a fresh  perspective on business, culture, or technology (amongst other things). They publish articles, more like presentations, called manifestos, about changing the world. They are free (no ads), you download the manifestos (beautifully presented pdfs) and then ponder..reflect, and possibly approach a problem with a new perspective. ChangeThis is a nice and neat experience, and it helps to spread good ideas. (not surprising - the original idea behind ChangeThis came from Seth Godin).

I haven't read Meatball Sundae yet, but I will eventually. I have most of Seth's other books, and I highly recommend them for when you need to get into the "think different, be different" mode,  or need inspiration to change (or ammunition to present change to the higher ups). I bet some day there will be a Seth Godin boxed set (maybe including his action figure that came out recently).

This is a classic one-liner from his  blog, that comes to my mind often:

The two reasons people say no to your idea

"It's been done before"
"It's never been done before"

Even though neither one is truthful, accurate or useful, you need to be prepared for both.

Seth calls himself an agent of change. I can personally attest to this, because it was after reading Small is the New Big, that I started writing this blog!

"It's been done before"
"It's never been done before"

Even though neither one is truthful, accurate or useful, you need to be prepared for both.

Seth calls himself an agent of change. I can personally attest to this, because it was after reading Small is the New Big, that I started writing this blog!

Comments

[Eamon]

Hi

I really liked your blog (interesting, useful and relevant to my site).

Was wondering whether you would like to exchange links?

www.spotlightideas.co.uk (Creative Thinking, Communications, Brands / Branding and Media).

My background is in Advertising Account Planning (for some leading London ad agencies), TV Research and IT.

Eamon