Back in February, Seth Godin made a post about “The two vocabularies (because there are two audiences),” discussing how the vocabulary that appeals to people who consider themselves early adopters differs from those who see themselves as part of the mass market.
So for example, early adopters of electric cars may want to consider themselves on the leading edge of technology and preserving the environment and are attracted by language that reflects that.
Whereas people in the mass market want assurances that they won’t be stranded in the middle of the desert by a depleted charge and won’t even look in the direction of an electric car in the mall parking lot if marketing doesn’t evoke dependability.
He offers a list of words for both categories. For early adopters, terms like: “New, Innovative, Breakthrough, Controversial, Brave, Untested, Slice/Dominate/Win, Dangerous.”
For mass market, terms like: “Tested, Established, Proven, Industry-leading, Widespread, Easy, Experienced, Certified, Highest-rated.
When I first saw this list in February, my initial thought was that the early adopter language would appeal to younger audiences and the mass market language to older audiences. Assuming you could describe the experience you were offering accurately using both sets of terms, these lists were good starting points for separate parallel marketing campaigns.
I couldn’t see trying to use both sets of vocabulary effectively in the same campaigns. Either you would turn one or both segments off with too edgy/boring language or the event would appear to occupy a wishy-washy middle ground of no particular appeal. (Or in the case of this post title, make you wonder, what the hell?)
I sort of skimmed over Godin’s statement that:
“It’s worth noting here that you’re only an early adopter sometimes, when you want to be. And you’re only in the mass market by choice as well. It’s an attitude,”
and made my own assumptions about people.
However….
Since February I have read/written about how younger audiences are concerned about mitigating the risk of having a bad experience. An edgy, novel experience is great at times, but the assurance of a little mass market language probably won’t be misplaced at others. Especially in the absence of a group of peers to accompany one.
I have read about first many year ago in Geoffrey Moore’s “Breaking the chasm”. I think you are absolutely right that these segements need a different approach!
Confusing at first, but soon it cleared itself up, was a thought in the latest Wallace Report on Millenials and their approach to the arts: it’s not the money, its the risk of the unknown. They’d be happy to spend 100$ and the likes but not on an unknown play – the risk to too high. So the big question to me is: how do we take the risks out of a decision to go to the theatre …
(btw: I live near a small coastal town in Germany which has a great city theatre that works well, as I regularly find. But: opening nights are usually less then half full – the people need to find out, how the opening night went. And rely for that on the press and to some extent to word of mouth. Very risk-averse.)