Fly Without Wings

Can you experience anything without having the knowledge of it?

Short answer, No.  Psychologists and Philosophers across the world seem to hold this view. Knowledge apparently is the precondition to the experience that follows.

Even in our global multicultural work-life context, how often have we been exposed to the fact that being an Indian, American or a Japanese means having different experiences in the “same” or the “objective” world?

Which is not surprising because all of us have been conditioned right from our childhoods in different contexts - commonly known as cultures - and these contexts shape our experiences.

Interestingly this truth is also the core tenet behind what marketers call as “Positioning” - which in simple words means that if I (as an individual) can not “name and frame” any object, I will not be able to react to it.

Now that raises the legitimate question of how do people keep coming up with successful “new” product introductions all the time then?

The same argument of “no experience without knowledge” with a little modification could explain this easily - the most successful new product introductions (or brand positionings if you will) take your “target” audience from what is “familiar” and  “known” to what is NOT “familiar” and “known” (in other words the marketer typically frames the “new” concept in a familiar/ existing perspective to be able to cut ice with the audience).

In the absolute sense though - if you went by the theory of “no experience without knowledge” - is there actually ever anything called as a ”new” introduction?

How could a human mind - in this case the marketer - with no knowledge (and by corollary - no experience) of the so called “new” - launch anything?

Which also explains why product launches are always considered “new” only in a relative context - “new” only to a certain target/ aggregate.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 at 10:09 am and is filed under Marketing, Start-ups. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.