1.2 billion looks like a great number almost anywhere. That’s about the number of views PSY’s Gangnam Style has reached and the number is still growing. Charlie bit my finger is yet another youtube sensation that has turned into a business, and the funnygummy bear has it’s own version of songs, merchandise, and games. When you see these videos at the first instance, they might sound stupid, but today these are some of the hottest commodities on the Internet.
Before these videos get popular, I am sure that if you were to take these concepts to a market research company or a major ad agency, they would not even bother spending the time to look at them as potentially successful business concepts. In fact, if we were to look at a lot of the commercial advertisements produced on YouTube by major businesses, they fail to reach even 10 percent of what some of these videos have reached, and with a much lower effect. So Which one is smart and which one is stupid! Moreover, the production cost for some of these videos is almost negligible yet the impact they produce is significant.
It seems that people like PSY, funnygummy, and Charlie bit my finger knew what they were doing, when in the first instance we might think this is simply stupid. Yet this is an important lesson to help us understand what really interests people today as they will decide on what will become the next big thing. When the crowd decides on what is fun, cool, and interesting, the results are far beyond any possible forecast. This phenomenon has changed the face of business today and therefore will require a change in how we also interact with them. The next time a business idea lands on your desk, think twice before calling it stupid!!