The Mess of Marketing

One thing about great marketing that seems counter-intuitive is that the best is very messy. I don’t mean that the ultimate product, message or expression is necessarily a mess, but getting there, especially within the innovation and product development cycles, is ugly.

Take Google, for example. There has been a cascade of news reports (I have read mostly through the Wall Street Journal, myself) about the fits and starts of Google’s own brand and feature extensions. Last week they pulled the plug on Wave. A week before, they were developing a Facebook alternative. I’ve already written about Google Buzz. There’s Google TV. Google Android phone OS. The chart below (which I found through Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim), shows a seven year arc of development, succession and abandonment in just the social media sphere (thanks to Mashable.com). Google tries a lot.