Why changing your marketing budgets is so hard ...

Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with ice cold water.

After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result -- all the other monkeys are sprayed with ice cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, put away the cold water. And after a week, remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he learns that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.

A week later remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! A week later, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth.
Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked. Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.

After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far as they know that's the way it's always been done around here.

Take Out: Could this be the reason that many brands are still spending on TV and print when there is so much clear and trusted research that shows a) the audience is not there and b) it does not work???? 

Comments

[Mark Goodyear]

Vivid analogy! 2 questions at the risk of pushing the analogy too far...

What banana is dangling in front of marketers--social media strategies or just WOM in general?

And who sprayed the monkeys to begin with?

That last one sounds like a joke, but I'm serious. Are marketers hesitant to believe the promises of WOM and social marketing because they were fell for false promises in the 90s tech bubble?

[Maria]

Although I agree 100% with both the analogy and the truth behind it, allow me to toy with the flipside for a second. It could be that all the talking up of new media that has been going on lately has been messing with "traditional" marketers' heads. Marketers who like the idea of "new media" but really have no idea how to go about it in a smart way.

And, like Pavlovian dogs, these marketers are becoming conditioned to drool over any mention of "new media" because, well, everyone says "new media" is a great idea. Never mind a specific approach or plan of attack isn't even in sight.

So they approach it blindly, recklessly, without a plan or even a deeper understanding. The result: various, often embarrassing, instances of me-tooism that leave both marketers and audiences grossly underwhelmed. I bet all those Wal-Mart execs were salivating over the "blog" walmartingacrossamerica.com in the boardroom, as were all the agencies and clients setting up shop in Second Life only to turn into miniature ghost towns.

Point is, this stuff is no monkey business, pardon the bad pun, and we can only hope marketers will tap a bit more of the 1350 cc homo sapiens brain capacity.