Become the George Costanza of Marketing and Content
Do The Opposite if you're not getting results.
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There is a famous episode of Seinfeld called “The Opposite.” Sitting in the diner with Jerry and Elaine, George Costanza realizes that his current set of behaviours is getting him nowhere. None of his strategies work.
GEORGE: My life is the complete opposite of everything I want it to be. Every instinct I have in every aspect of life, be it something to wear, something to eat… It’s all been wrong.
So when the waitress comes to take his usual order, George makes a bold decision: he will embrace “The Opposite.” He orders something completely different than his usual lunch. For every instinct he has, he will do the exact opposite and see what happens. The joy of the episode is that, of course, Doing The Opposite works magically. The theory is first put to the test when a woman in the diner makes eye contact with George.
ELAINE: Go talk to her.
GEORGE: Elaine, bald men with no jobs and no money who live with their parents don’t approach strange women.
JERRY: Well, here’s your chance to try the opposite… If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.
And so the opposite experiment begins…
GEORGE: [He goes over to the woman] Excuse me, I couldn’t help but notice that you were looking in my direction.
VICTORIA: Oh, yes I was. You just ordered the same exact lunch as me.
GEORGE: [Takes a deep breath] My name is George. I’m unemployed and I live with my parents.
And, of course, she is impressed with his honesty and vulnerability and goes on a date with him. He applies the same logic in a job interview and gets a job with the New York Yankees.
Opposite Costanza Marketing
What does this have to do with marketing, content strategy, and earning attention? Much like George at the start of the episode, a lot of us can sometimes find ourselves mired in behaviours that aren’t delivering the intended results.
Some common behaviours that don’t often deliver results:
Spray-and-pray reach campaigns that annoy more people than they help
Too much focus on short-term ROI
Too much talk about products and services
Creating a lot of marketing and content that has no engagement or impact
To modify Jerry’s advice to George:
“If every [marketing] instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.”
Marketers and content creators should embrace their inner Costanza and Do the Opposite.
In marketing, what does Doing the Opposite look like?
Reaching everyone becomes reaching only the right people.
Short-term ROI becomes long-term ROI. (Urgency becomes patience.)
Putting the spotlight on our products and services becomes putting the spotlight on those we seek to impact. (Selfishness becomes generosity.)
Hoarding our knowledge and insight becomes giving away our knowledge and insight for the greater good. (Volume and efficiency become quality - fewer things better.)
Measuring reach becomes measuring time and engagement.
And the most important Opposite shift of all: interruption becomes earning attention.
At the core of all this “Do the Opposite” marketing is the creation of value for the people we are seeking to impact. That is not an accident.
Ann Handley, author of Everybody Writes, told me:
The more your audience loves your content, then the more that they will come to know you, like you, trust you, and rely on you for whatever it is that you do or sell. Having an audience-centric mindset, serving the customer first, and not being selfish by talking about your products and your services is, to me, the key to good marketing.
This is entirely logical. Doing The Opposite actually makes a ton of sense.
Opposite Costanza Content
The Opposite earns a lot of attention when applied to content strategy, too. Doing the Opposite is a huge running theme in my book, Earn It - it can be a massive differentiator at every stage of a content journey.
Whether it is generating unusual combinations, creating unexpected twists in your storytelling, producing content that is from you, but not about you, and being unexpectedly awesome by breaking patterns and setting a high-quality bar, Doing The Opposite of what everyone else is doing really works.
It’s shockingly obvious why Doing The Opposite in all these ways works. If everyone else is doing the same thing, it’s really hard to differentiate yourself from others. If you make marketing or content that is completely expected and conventional, there is no reason to pay attention to it.
Average and conventional are boring.
Whether your business is content or marketing, success begins with people voluntarily choosing to spend time with you. It begins with earning their attention. And so… you can’t be boring. People don’t voluntarily choose average, conventional, or boring very often. People give their attention to outliers, surprises, and novelty. They stick around when their precious time and attention are rewarded with value - whether that is information, entertainment, or a combination of both.
The Opposite is the exception. The exceptions stand out. And this is the heart of it: Doing The Opposite is about being exceptional. Audiences and potential customers gravitate to the exceptional, not the average. Who doesn’t want to be exceptional?
So what are you waiting for, Costanza? It’s time to be exceptional and Do The Opposite.
What’s Earned My Attention Lately
Saas CMO Pro
I met Bill Macaitis when he was the CMO at Slack and we were producing their podcast. He is the smartest, most progressive, and nicest CMO I’ve ever met, so I was thrilled to see him launch this new Substack, podcast, and set of social channels. If you want to learn about marketing from one of the best, Bill is generously sharing a ton of his thinking and strategies.
Jay Acunzo’s Podcast & Truths of Creativity
Jay Acunzo is a brilliant creative who has a gift for inspiring others to make great work. He’s got a fantastic new podcast called “How Stories Happen” and I loved his interview with Ann Handley. Jay also wrote this terrific list of truths about creativity. One that really resonated with me: “Don't gather up all the answers you think you need to create. Create to find your answers.” YES!
Earn It Updates
New videos: Gary & Perry strongly pressured me to “Do The Opposite” of every other book and make a movie trailer for the book. After some encouragement from others, I did it. Behold Doing The Opposite… Earn It: The Movie Trailer for a Book!
And finally, I’m honoured to have this wonderful testimonial from the Saas CMO Pro himself, Bill Macaitis:
“Steve is an absolute wizard at creating delightful content that dazzles and inspires users. He was instrumental in our content strategy at Slack and providing content fuel for our rocketship growth.”
Great article.