Portray Your Product as Outstanding

Innovation expert speaker Jeremy Gutsche curates his top tips for infectious messaging and shares them with audiences of his innovation keynote speeches. One of Jeremy's most powerful messages is when he tells audiences, "Portray your product as average, and that is all it will ever be." He insists that products, brands and stories must be packaged as if they are the best in the world.

To illustrate just how important the medium and portrayal of a product is, Jeremy shares an experiment conducted that involved Joshua Bell, one of the world's best violinists in the world, playing for free in a subway stop.

"Josh Bell is quite simply one of the best violinists in the world. Accordingly, the Washington Post wanted to throw an unannounced concert. They wanted to do this in the busiest public walkway they could find, the DC Metro corridor, which more than 1,000 people pass through every hour.

The planners wanted to know how many people would stop, even for a moment, to watch him. Half? That would be roughly 500 people. Perhaps that's too many. 200? 100? Probably at least 50, right?

As it turns out, only 7 people stopped."

Because of the particular way Bell was marketed -- or wasn't marketed -- he only ended up making $35 in a whole hour. When he marketed properly -- as one of the best violinists and not some random musician in a subway -- he makes $1,000 a minute.

The story of Joshua Bell demonstrates why it is so important to portray product as the best in the world. For more insight into Jeremy's theories and concepts on infectious messaging, check out the FREE copy of his book here.