Fewer still have honored Eliot by stealing effectively. The truth is great marketers don’t aim to steal execution; they steal the strategy behind it.
Remember when Samsung went through that phase of packaging its tablets to look surprisingly similar to Apple (while following suit with their icons, USB cords, power adaptors and more)?
You can’t usurp a brand’s success if you don’t understand the strategy behind it.
2 comments:
I started off a little skeptical about this article, but I actually think it does present a valuable idea. I've read a couple different things pertaining to the "good artists copy; great artists steal" maxim, and I think this article is one of the best explanations for it that I've seen. If you see success that you'd like to emulate, matching it's appearance isn't going to get you the results you're looking for. To me, striving for the appearance of this successful object is copying, not the type of stealing this article praises. The idea of stealing technique is key here. Not only will it be more beneficial to you as the creator, but is "ethical stealing"
It has always seemed a little off to me to call taking ideas from someone else "stealing", first because theft has such a negative connotation, and second because if you actually steal an item it would logically follow that the original owner no longer has possession of the object, which is not really the case when you are talking about ideas. All the same, this is certainly still a concept worth considering. The "right way to steal" -- taking the reasons behind success as opposed to what's on the surface -- seems pretty obvious once it's said, but it's still important to realize that it's the strategy that is worth taking.
Post a Comment