Turkey Soda is the Future of Marketing

I sure hope that the future of marketing tastes better than Turkey & Gravy soda. But I got your attention – it was a cheap trick and I was trying to make a point.

What can you do in a Long Tail World to Stand Out?

Turkey Soda stands out because it’s an unexpected term – as a long tail search, it will always be unique because it’s just a little bit weird, and a concatenation of two terms that people search more often – Turkey and Soda. And indeed, the image above has been viewed more than any other piece of content I’ve ever produced, even though it’s just a low-quality shot from five years ago.

In an interruption-driven economy, you can gain attention by interrupting, but the half-life of that interruption is lowering over time to the point where trends on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook decay within hours, if not minutes. So be loud (and unusual.) It’s clear that outrageous things stand about “above the fold”, but what then?

Make it Viral (Yeah, Right!)

At that point if you’re really lucky, the content you’ve shared by interrupting people will become “viral” and spread all over the world. “Viral” might mean means gross / loud / unusual / weird / amazing / heart -rending – amplified emotion presented elegantly and in a wow package. (And easily shareable.)

This doesn’t happen very often. There are plenty of theories, and even a virality coefficient.

So for the vast majority of shares,  that don’t become interesting to a larger public, what should you do?

3 Lessons to Learn about Capitalizing on that Interruption

There are a few lessons that we can glean from the idea of Turkey Soda to gain attention.

1. Once you’ve interrupted someone and gotten their attention, you need to share relevant and interesting information – or they will leave for something else shiny and new.
2. It’s not enough to be just weird (or loud, or whatever other maximized attribute) – you also need to provide a great experience. In the case of Jones Soda, it was the ability to offer a limited-time offer that you could share with your friends (and gain your acceptance to try other weird flavors in the future.)
3. If it’s “on-brand” or really resonates with the customer you’re trying to reach, you have the opportunity to build a long-term relationship.

It almost goes without saying that If you’re concise, write great copy, and have something great to sell, people will always keep coming back. So if your idea or product is not yet great, keep asking people until you find the one thing about it that’s great and sell to that attribute. This means both maximizing your benefits and listening a little bit to the “satisfiers”, or the people when asked say “yeah, it’s ok- I like it.” You’ll get much more bang for your buck in your marketing if the end result is people hating or loving your idea. (Hopefully the latter, but …)

Good luck sharing relevant information that is truly timely and on-brand. (And ask your customer whether it’s working.)