Marketing Law 20 - Hype

The law of hype is one that is most likely understood when you’re evaluating your competition on the local front, or even national competitors. If a company’s marketing efforts begin to sound more and more like a pep rally, you can sometimes assume that things are not quite well with whatever is most being hyped. For instance, while New Coke was helping Coca-Cola lose millions of dollars, you saw ads for it everywhere you looked. In fact, about the only place you didn’t see it was in the fridges of potential customers.

Why was the parent company throwing all that money at advertising a sinking ship? Well, obviously they hoped they could keep it from sinking. But it sank anyway. And Coca-Cola went back to marketing and selling products that the public actually wanted to buy. So when your competition starts getting too giddy with the marketing, remember that someone is trying desperately to cover up the truth of a poor product or service offering.

The ultimate point is that you won’t find real information in the middle of the hype train. You’ll have to dig deeper, and look at the real numbers before you make a move based on what you’ve been seeing and hearing in the media.

(Adapted from "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout)