by Freddy Tran Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango + More of a Marketplace Fan than ever; note: buying via the links in this article may generate revenue for the Atomic Tango Martini Fund…
In 2008, I blogged about upstart electronics brand Skullcandy, which I had encountered at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas. Three years later, that article continues to do its deed, turning up Wednesday when reporter Jeff Horwich of public radio’s Marketplace went searching…
Skullcandy went full IPO that day, so Horwich called to get my take. Hence, I scored my 15 seconds of spotlight (if radio has a spotlight). You can read the full Marketplace transcript on Skullcandy here — I’ll just share my bit:
“Today’s IPO values the company at more than $500 million. Freddy Nager talks about Skullcandy with his marketing students at UCLA. Nager says Skullcandy has done a masterful job dressing up decent Chinese headphones. Unfortunately, other people can do that, too.
Freddy Nager: So now any celebrity who considers himself or herself a brand can call up a Chinese factory and say, ‘hey I want my name on a product.’ It really does pose a huge burden on Skullcandy to always be even edgier-than-thou.
Nager says he’s got a new assignment for his class: design a pair of headphones that’s cooler than Skullcandy.”
Sure, that was fun. It also perfectly coincided with my class lecture that night. By blogging about an uncommon topic (Skullcandy instead of, say, Apple), I came up on the Google radar. That’s what Wired editor Chris Anderson would describe as a “Long Tail” effect: thanks to the Internet, niche products like Skullcandy articles can get discovered and deliver value for years.
The incident also supported my lessons about the Long Tail, for which I made my students read the comic-book adaptation of Anderson’s work (see excerpt below).
Yes, it’s a multimedia world we live in, where a blog about a convention exhibit leads to a public radio interview that supports an in-class lecture on a comic book by a Wired editor. And just for kicks, I’ll be tweeting this article, too.
Excerpt from “The Long Tail,” written by Chris Anderson, published by Smarter Comics, and illustrated by my friend Shane Clester.
