The Perils of the Imitation Age

This is the title of an article, by Eric Bonabeau, published in this month’s edition of the Harvard Business Review. You either need to buy the journal or purchase it from the HBR site.

The article begins with a superb Mark Twain quotation.

“The average man is destitute of independence of opinion. He is not interested in contriving an opinion of his own, by study and reflection, but only anxious to find out what his neighbour’s opinions is and slavishly adopt it”.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I think we have got to the root cause of why marketers have largely ignored the 50+ market.

Bonabeau suggests there are four drivers of this imitation behaviour, all of which are rooted in our evolutionary psychology.

Safety – Following the well worn path through the woods may not make you a pioneer but at least you won’t become food for wolves?

Conformity – We all want to be accepted and the best way of doing that is to ape our fellows.

Belief that the other guy knows better – in a complex world it is sometimes necessary to abdicate responsibilities for our decisions so we look to people we deem successful.

Greed - The widespread fear of missing out and not getting the same perceived success as our peers.

I think the concept of “imitation marketing” explains a lot. It creates a feedback loop that reinforces the status quo and keeps us duplicating past mistakes.
Dick Stroud: www.20plus30.com