Anybody Remember Ishtar? A Great Internet Marketing Lesson Can Be Learned From It
Do any of you remember the 1987 comedy film Ishtar? Most of you probably don’t, but many of you are probably rolling your eyes because it is notorious for being one of the absolute biggest box office flops in movie history.
$55 million dollar budget.
$14 million dollar take at the box office.
You do the math.
So what in the world does a movie from before the Internet age have to do with your web development and web design? Well, our friend Mark Boyd – aka Marqeteer – is just strange enough to track down a movie like this and draw an analogy. While reading this analogy, remind yourself of how quickly viral marketing spreads online – especially if the news is negative – and you will see the correlation.
Ishtar was pretty much doomed as soon as it hit theaters. It ranked #1 its first weekend with a fairly modest take and fell rather quickly due to a merciless barrage of negative reviews, all fueled by negative commentary about the ridiculous budget, infighting, actor/director clashes and other things that had nothing to do with watching the movie itself. The negative word spread and colored people’s perception of the movie without them even seeing it.
If you were to ask someone today if they were familiar with Ishtar, there will be those who say yes. Of the people who say “yes” only a small portion of them have actually seen the movie. Most of those who haven’t seen it will undoubtedly be familiar with the negativity surrounding Ishtar…and maybe even offer an opinion, however uneducated. However uneducated those opinions were, they led to the movie being so badly reviewed that it’s not even available on DVD here in the US.
Which means people will give opinions even though they have no first hand knowledge about something. How you present yourself online and communicate through your website speaks to people either positively or negatively. Whatever reaction you get from people will be spread quickly through their circles of friends. These people are then likely to offer opinions to others…sometimes without having visited your site themselves (i.e. Ishtar).
Obviously, you can’t please all of the people all of the time…but you CAN put thought into your content, your pictures and your overall presentation that will be inviting to people and create more positive buzz.
Don’t make your website too nice or milquetoast…let your personality, humour, creativity and opinions shine. It humanizes you to visitors and leaves either a positive or negative opinion with them. This opinion will be spread by both those who know and don’t know. Heck, look at the layout of the MIND website. Think we like rock n roll and retro pictures? Hell yeah! That’s us. We love it and, fortunately, people love us for it.
What do you love? Remember, people will love you for it.
As long as it’s not Hot Fudge Love…
friends, listen to streaming music, watch streaming video, get gaming news, download updates and game add-ons as well as play games together with a million other users around the world. How does this relate to Social Media? On XBOX LIVE when you fill out your profile information you are able to choose a “Gamer Zone”. A Gamer Zone is how you choose to use your membership or how you play. Zones include “Pro”, “Recreation”, “Family” and “Underground”. Initially these were set up so players could game with other players in the same Zone… avoiding the overly aggressive pros or finding a gaming syndicate on the underground. The Gamer Zone is the first breakdown on the XBOX LIVE Social Community… by simply checking a players zone you are able to get an idea of how they play, why they play and what kind of games they play while online. This is a big step; knowing and understanding your market.
The mysterious “Stig” who has recently been sighted all over Google Street View Maps showed up right here in Lancaster, PA today. Stig, well know driver for BBC’s 
