NORTHERN PLANNER

I may have mentioned I love Prince. Like most people, I joined the ride on the Little Red Corvette, when 1999 came out.

Or to be precise, when it was re-released. That's right, the first attempt was a complete failure.

Even before that, Prince's overnight success was a long time in the making.

With a series of albums that made of him a cult favourite, without ever breaking through.

Until he got on MTV and made the record that began to cut-through. 

The record company gave him a lot of time to bed in.

The Shawshank Redemption bombed at the box office, yet was erm, redeemed, with the DVD release. 

Just as the first series of Blackadder was middling, it wasn't until series 2 that it found it's feet.

Just as Parks and Recreation didn't become truly wonderful until a couple of years in.

Few have that luxury any more.

Movies are killed in their opening weekend.

Bands, new and old, are dropped at the first sign of failure.

Because we live in a busy world that makes too much stuff for anyone to hope to consume. 

Yet we all still have exactly the same amount of time. 

So average sinks to the bottom like a stone.

The only hope of standing out is to be outstanding.

Its still possible to get shared and talked about, but the cost of entry is to be in the 5% of stuff that's worth bothering with.

Precision marketing matters of course, it cuts out waste.

But getting in front people does not guarantee success. I know, I've used dating websites. 

Average Instagram doesn't get shared.

Boring Tweets don't get re-tweeted.

Average video doesn't get liked and shared. 

Average ads get forgotten at best, annoy at worst. 

Our culture takes no prisoners now. 

It's ruthless in sorting the good and bad.

No actually, in sorting the excellent from the sea of average.

Good enough is no longer good enough. 

So it's great that excellent doesn't cost more than average, it just takes more work and care. 

In fact, the lukewarm stuff costs more.

You should know that 'Fame' campaigns pay back more by now.

But flip it.

Putting effort in to something that doesn't pay back as hard as it could, that less people see than they might have, is dumb.

And wasting valuable money. 

In other words, spend more time on making things you can't wait to publish, that people actually wish existed.

It will pays back more.

And in a world where the cost of entry is to simply stand-out in a hailstorm of dross.

You can't afford to be lukewarm.