How Hits Happen: Forecasting Predictability in a Chaotic Marketplace (Business Essentials S.) - Softcover

Farrell, Winslow

Softcover

ISBN 10: 158799027X ISBN 13: 9781587990274

Publisher: Texere Publishing, 2000

Synopsis

Why do some products or services turn out to be 'hits', whilst others fail to make an impact on the market? Leading marketing consultant Winslow Farrell offers a powerful approach to uncovering the hidden patterns behind business successes and 'hits'. By applying new ideas from science to modern business problems, Farrell sheds light on the complex world of consumer behaviour. In doing so, he helps managers and entrepreneurs to identify the patterns and forces that lead to a 'hit', and the triggers that will enable businesses to capture and sustain that 'hit'.

About this title

Review

How is it that certain sites become the superstars of the World Wide Web? What makes Internet-based stores and services, such as America Online, burst into public consciousness? The process is the same, Farrell explains, as that which took Hootie and the Blowfish from bar band to supergroup at record speed or made Beanie Babies the national craze.

Farrell shows how social interactions create hits, both online and off. Better yet, he demonstrates how computer models are using the mathematics of complexity theory to help predict the hit or flop potential of new ideas, products and services. What makes the models so fascinating is that they behave as groups of individual consumers, running in simulated communities inside the computer, approximating the reactions of their flesh-and-blood counterparts.

While the principles here apply to the entire world of business, they are particularly essential for those who wish to create an audience or customer base on the Internet, where the hit-creating (and preventing) forces seem to be particularly volatile. And while Farrell makes it clear that hits cannot be manufactured on demand, he is able to provide good advice on tactics, which can swing the odds more in your favour. --Elizabeth Lewis

Edition details

• Publisher: Texere Publishing
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 158799027X
• ISBN 13: 9781587990274
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 228