Seth Godin in his recent book Tribes, heavily promotes the idea of becoming a leader – innovating, creating a new game, gathering like-minded people.
He gives lots of great examples and makes a strong case that this is the wave of the future.
Well, maybe.
Or more accurately, sometimes.
The truth is sometimes you need to lead and sometimes you need to follow.
Here’s a great example where the only choice is to follow. It doesn’t matter what anyone says about the new TSA screening measures, why they are necessary and make flying safer. True or not, these measures are hated. If the Obama administration doesn’t back off, it’ll just make Obama less popular. I’m sorry but you just can’t sell Americans on the idea that if they want to fly, they have a choice of being viewed naked or receiving intrusive physical pat-downs.
It’s common in marketing to find yourself in a situation where your most fruitful route to success is to be a follower.
Of course there are tons of counter-examples. Many marketing gurus have pointed out the fastest and easiest route to huge success is inventing a new category of product, like Xerox when they invented plain paper copiers.
So be alert to what makes most sense for your situation and realize that marketing is VERY different in these two cases.