Digital Marketing

Question 3.  With the recent onslaught of Humanoids being released into the market & in combination with Open AI’s ChatGPT, the biggest investment in the recent times going to Humanoid companies. The ‘talk of the town’ is now ‘Humanoids’. The long-neglected robotics industry seems to have come back to life. In this scenario, what should we do?

A.  Trends and narratives lay a biased playing field for their originators, which eventually pushes us to comply rather than invent. Blending with trends makes us lose our individuality. Trend or anti-trend, uniqueness matters. If uniqueness somehow compliments the trends, it will naturally resonate with the audience and get carried along. Hence, we should focus entirely on building our own narratives, our own stories and trends – no matter the size.

B.   Overnight sensations and trends rapidly disappear like rain mushrooms. Being recognized AFTER the trend fades… also matters. Time and again, the people who are remembered are the ones who challenged the trend and called out its limitations (eg. Raghuram Rajan). It is one of the best ways to standout and establish uniqueness. We should challenge this with an anti-thesis – the technology to address these age-old unsolved problems are still nascent & unproven.

C.   ‘Humanoids’ as a trend is an overnight sensation and aligning blindly may be disastrous in the long run if it fails to address the root causes of the problem. We should patiently evaluate the potential utility & longevity of the narrative. Only if it has the potential to generate significant traction for our business, we should align with the trend and utilize it grow our presence.

D.   Evidently, companies that align with trends experience accelerated growth as it keeps them relevant and significantly reduces the cost of educating their target audience. The participation from competition propagates it further leading to emergence of opportunities with faster acceptance. Even though it runs a risk of fading out, the utility of trends can still help to fail fast and accelerate learning. We should align to identify ourselves with this trend to propel our growth.