Friday the 13th is a horror movie classic.
Jason Voorhees, the slasher of Camp Crystal Lake, wreaks havoc amongst the camp counsellors and elevates a Halloween rip-off into a new sub-genre of its own.
But, wait. If you’re a horror movie fan like me, you know I just made a classic mistake, right?
The killer in the first Friday the 13th movie is not Jason Voorhees, is it? I won’t spoil the actual ending for anyone who hasn’t seen it, but if you know, you know.
But when people think of the Friday the 13th movies, they think of Jason Voorhees, even if it’s wrong. Because that’s become the meme, the received knowledge.
It makes me think of things “everyone knows” about other movies, which are also wrong.
For instance, nowhere in Casablanca does anyone say, “Play it again, Sam.”
Nowhere in The Empire Strikes Back does Darth Vader say, “Luke, I am your father.”
But these things pass on mimetically, because they sound right, even if they aren’t right.
The things everyone knows to be right are very often actually wrong.
And this applies to marketing, too.
Everyone knows you have to move fast. You have to jump on every trend, every meme, every new and shiny tool that comes along.
Right? Right?
Wrong. Just because something is mimetic, popular, and common knowledge doesn’t mean it’s right for you to do, too.
In fact, in marketing, if everyone is doing something, you should probably do something else.
In movies, and in marketing, sometimes people just say stuff. They misremember or misrepresent stuff. And that becomes the received wisdom because it spreads easily and quickly, not because it’s actually true.
People tend to follow each other off the proverbial cliff in exactly the same way that lemmings do not, even if that’s the myth.
So be careful the next time you think you have to do something, just because everyone else is, or everyone else says you have to.
They might be misremembering, misrepresenting, or just misinterpreting reality.
People say “Play it again, Sam,” but Humphrey Bogart never did.
People say “Luke, I am your father,” but James Earl Jones never did.
And people say you have to follow common marketing practices.
Even if the ones who actually succeed never did.
Kelford Inc. shows you the way to always knowing what to say.