The Monkey Shack

Researchers and statisticians are always leery of statistical outliers, often removing them entirely from consideration when analyzing data. But while outliers may skew data results in statistical charts, outliers are where real change occurs in business and the real world.

The biggest movements and trends normally go mainstream but they rarely start there. Barack Obama was regarded as the most liberal Senator in D.C., began a movement that many considered as fringe, extreme, or radical, then grew it into mainstream politics. In business, change never occurs by doing the things that have always been done, or simply duplicating the strategies of others. Change, by definition, must be different, which means it always starts as an outlier.

Yesterday I forwarded to a colleague a website from a national hotel chain, which is taking a very unique, some may call it risky and extreme, approach in its positioning. My colleague dismissed it as "too far out there" to really be taken seriously. But as a marketer, one should always be paying attention to outliers. Some outlying cultural trends may at first glance seem radical, but always dismissing them will eventually only leave you trying to jump on a bandwagon you yourself may have been driving.