Message in a Vottle re-visited

The arts industry is very cruel. Few winners, lots of losers. There is no middle ground. Either you are in the top 10, or you are nowhere.

When you create something that no one has asked for, you make yourself vulnerable.

Take a motion picture venture for example. People work on it for years and years, crafting away, burning the middle oil, putting everything they have into it, and then, if all goes well, the movie is released in theatres, and, then you pace and pace... the box office numbers are what it's all about. And there is not much you can do once you pull the trigger. After opening night you just need to sit and pray.

Yes, life really is often all about the numbers. But the numbers need interpretation. Say a film comes out and it has an opening weekend surge and then a week later it just flatlines. The obvious interpretation here is that people didn't like the film, ie, it opened with a bang, and then it just dropped off as the word of mouth was bad.

But, what if the film never opens.

There is a different message in people not liking a film versus they were not interested in a film. If a film opens big and drops off quickly, then "they didn't dig it" is a safe conclusion, but if it didn't even open then it means they were not at all curious to see it, ie, they weren't interested. It could also mean that no one knew the film existed, ie, the marketing wasn't effective.

Could it be that a good product, say, for the sake of the above example. a good film, doesn't see the light of day... absolutely! But unlikely, because a good film will inspire and attract good marketing and publicity. But, it does happen that good things can go unnoticed, good films, good pizzas, good software ... or a good blog piece (well, I will leave that to whoever reads this to decide).

Posted by Ronnie Apteker