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hey everybody welcome to another episode
of impact books today we are reviewing
hit makers by Derek Thompson I really
enjoyed this book but I'm a little bit
tense to be reviewing it because I think
it would be easy to summarize it really
briefly and it would probably be
relatively easy to summarize in just
grotesque amounts of detail but hitting
that sweet spot in the Middle where I
give you enough detail to really get a
flavor for the book without overdoing it
I think it's going to be a little bit
hard but here we go here's my best take
at it all right first and foremost most
hit makers are Masters Of The Familiar
surprise and while at the end of the day
this book really is about how difficult
it is to predict the future that notion
of familiarity is one of the most
empowering or powerful takeaways from
the book um a great example of this
concept of familiarity is the kibot 7
now the kibot 7 is a story of a
well-to-do aristocratic painter who was
one of the French Impressionists who was
painting alongside uh Monae and other
people that became a part of the
impressionist Canon and the fascinating
thing about this story is when people
really break down and look at what ended
up becoming the Canon and why those
painters versus other painters that were
um popular at the time why they end up
being the ones that are remembered
really comes down to they were the ones
the seven that this guy kibot was
collecting um he had the means to be
buying art as well as be creating art
and he was actually buying some of the
more obscure paintings from relatively
obscure painters and so how on Earth is
it that they end up becoming the most
famous and this is the perfect example
of familiarity so what happened was when
kibot passed away he gifted his
collection to the National Museum but he
had one stipulation if they were going
to accept the gifts of these paintings
they had to hang them and this created
massive controversy and people thought
you know who is this guy to mandate
what's going to be hung in the National
Gallery now keep in mind these weren't
his paintings it wasn't like he was
promoting you know hey if you're going
to take these other ones and you have to
hang up mind these were paintings done
by his friends so they weren't any of
his own paintings and in fact it was
Monae that ultimately convince the
National Gallery to take half of them
but in all of this um uproar over him
having the audacity to say that they had
to hang these these paintings got
notoriety people just became more and
more familiar with them because they
were caught up in this controversy and
merely becoming more famous for this
controversy when somebody would walk
through the museum and see them there
would be the sense of familiarity oh I
know that painting and that sense of
recognition made the painting seem more
important which led into them becoming
the most famous of the French
Impressionists and you get a very
similar story with the mo with um the
Mona Lisa the Mona Lisa now is
considered to be the most famous
painting of all time and when people try
to explain why it's so famous the only
answers they can really give are that
basically it has the features of the
Mona Lisa you know so you'll describe
what the Mona Lisa has and that's why
it's famous which really isn't very
compelling and the author makes a very
different case which is the Mona Lisa
and I actually didn't know this but the
Mona at one point had been stolen and it
went missing for like more than a decade
and in the time that it was missing then
people were like freaking out the kind
of example of you don't know what you
until it's gone and because it was
missing people were in an uproar it was
a National Treasure and for it to be
gone you know is just a crime and when
it finally was recovered and restored
and put back into the museum then it
really began to become famous and later
because of all the notoriety around
having gone missing and being returned
that was when it took off in popularity
so it was hundreds of years if I'm not
mistaken before the painting really
began to get famous and later ends up
being done um in not mockery but people
painting um versions of it with a
mustache and Andy Warhol did a version
of it and that repetition um which
started with it being stolen and
returned and then getting um famous as
as a replica of things that people were
doing that gave it that familiarity
which then makes it seem so much more
important when you go and see it and if
you've ever seen it it's a little bit
underwhelming it's not a very big
painting
um and compared to some of the other
brighter flashier paintings that you'll
see in the Lou today if it weren't for
the fact that it's so famous I don't
know that it would have caught my eye
and that certainly is the author's
thesis and that its very familiarity is
the thing that made it so famous so the
whole notion of people preferring
familiarity is known as the mere
exposure effect um and this has been
replicated in study after study and if
you show people a bunch of images but
repeat some of them more than others
people will tell you they prefer the
ones that have been repeated the most
now that scares me uh the author
presents his hypothesis that this may be
because it has a evolutionary advantages
basically if a plant or animal was more
familiar to you it was something that
you were known and it hadn't killed you
yet then it probably was safe so that
familiarity gets baked into us as a
sense of something being okay and if you
really want to get freaked out by this
notion that familiarity rules all um
then think about this people often conf
conflict
familiarity with the truth all right let
that sink in people literally confuse
something being familiar with something
being true and when people are tested
they can usually tell the difference
between a false statement and a true
statement but if you begin to repeat the
false statement people especially older
people I thought it was a little cruel
to single them out but if that's what
the studies reveal so especially older
people begin to believe that it's true
even though when they were first asked
they identified it correctly as being
false over time because it becomes so
familiar they begin to believe that it's
true all right that one freaked me out
but it's something that uh certainly
politicians use the mere repetition of
something um ingrains itself I won't uh
get myself in trouble with any specific
examples but I'm sure you can all think
of some all right this begs the question
to me what role does quality play in all
of this um if exposure is all that it
takes does quality even matter and
according to the author quality is
necessary but not efficient and the
example that he gives is um of the song
called Me Maybe by Karly Ray jebson it
failed to break into even the top 20
until Justin Bieber tweeted it and when
Justin Bieber tweeted it it goes on to
be a Smash Hit ends up being one of the
biggest songs of the decade but you can
literally see Justin Bieber's tweet as a
demarcation point in its popularity and
so you know I won't get into the debate
of whether it's a good song certainly a
catchy song that it needed that
additional boost of the exposure
regardless of whether or not it was a
quality song so you really do need both
and you know if something's a great
piece of art a great song but nobody
ever hears it I think it's pretty
obvious that it's never going to catch
on so at some point you have to get it
out there another important factor is
what the author refers to as fluency
fluency is um thoughts ideas anything
really that feels easy and if you've
ever wondered why thinking about some
things feels easy and thinking about
some things feels hard which I always
found very weird since it's just
thinking uh but this comes down to
fluency and he said words that rhyme um
words that rhyme easily specifically so
if I said hey think of words that rhyme
with hat that's very easy has a high
degree of fluency but if I say think of
words that rhyme with strategy it's not
as easy it has what he calls disfluency
it is perceived as being harder and
what's fascinating is something that has
disfluency even though so let's say
let's give an example if I said think of
uh a movie that you like
and then I asked you to rate it and then
I said name seven things about that
movie that you like seven is just high
enough that it will cause disfluency it
will actually be hard for you to think
of seven things that you liked about
that movie and you will begin to confuse
the disfluency the feeling of unease
that you get from trying to name seven
things about it that you like with the
actual movie and so if you ask people
just to rate the movie they'll give it a
higher rating than if you ask people to
name seven things about it that they
like they'll rate it lower because of
that
disfluency so that concept of really
understanding um that the ease with
which something presents itself is uh a
big factor and um he brings it back
around he being the author brings it
back around to this notion of
familiarity um which is that you're
really looking for an Optimum level of
fluency he said that it really is like
if you want to sell something that's
familiar you need to make it surprising
and if you want to sell something
surprising you need to make it a little
bit familiar and he gives the example of
Star Wars really achieving that Optimum
level of newness and he said um Star
Wars is the perfect example of this
because it was familiar uh it was really
George Lucas was trying to remake Flash
Gordon but the studio wouldn't sell him
the rights and so there's this sense of
him riffing on Flash Gordon that he
referred to it himself as making a
Western in space that he was taking some
of the imagery from um Samurai films
which is wild the lightsabers so it was
this hodgepodge of all these really um
famous story types and even referencing
one of the most famous stories in the
genre from the TV serial um Flash Gordon
and so all of that but done in a new way
and really struck that that ultimate
balance and then he goes on to talk
about how repetition especially in music
is really critical and so you get the
sense as he goes on in the book that um
predictability familiarity exposure
which really creates predictability and
familiarity all of those things are are
playing into what creates a hit but that
you have to really beware of being
overly redundant but this notion of what
he calls repetition being the God
particle of music I found really really
fascinating and he said the reason for
this is that from an evolutionary
standpoint we were singing long before
we were able to speak and so things that
have a musical quality um tend to
increase the fluency of something so one
of the examples that he gives is when
you um like Reading Writing arithmetic I
forget the name of that but when you
give something that has not only the
Cadence of three where they all start
with r all of these things rhyming being
another example all of these things that
create a great degree of fluency and
people can actually begin to believe
something is true simply because it is
um vocally beautiful and he gives an
example of how something that is
repeated in a song If you then isolate
and play back and he does this in the in
the audio book it's really well worth
listening to where if you take somebody
repeating something over and over and
over it begins to sound like a song even
though they weren't singing which is
really really uh fascinating and and
definitely worth checking out um so
you're just a to bring it back you're
looking for that optimal level of
newness you want to be just surprising
enough that people don't feel that it's
too repetitive and then another thing
along those lines um words at rhyme are
perceived to be more true that's another
one of those things that scares me uh
but nonetheless things that rhyme people
consider to be true um okay
so at the end of the book he's basically
saying that predicting the future is
almost entirely possible so he goes on
you know all the things about
familiarity exposure um fluency okay
that's a hit but then how do you look
forward and and try to create that out
of nothing and he gives this really
incredible example of the song rock
around the clock and if you listen to it
now because rock around the clock goes
on to be one of the greatest um highest
performing songs of all time one of the
most popular songs most played um did
really well on the charts but it didn't
do well until the second time it was
released and the first time it was
released was only a year before and he
talks about how the context of something
really matters and that subtle shifts in
context subtle shifts in the way that
something is presented can have a
massive impact so when the song Rock
Around the Clock first came out it was
bside on an album it was more or less
ignored it very briefly um appeared on
the Billboard top 100 but then very
quickly disappeared uh goes away
everybody thinks that it's going to be
forgotten and then a year later it ends
up being um in the title sequence of the
movie Blackboard Jungle and then ends up
being a Smash Hit and goes on to to be
one of the greatest selling albums of
all time and he said nobody ever would
have predicted that like nobody nobody
did it had come out a year before and
nobody expected anything out of that
song and it didn't really do much so the
fact that people then try to go back and
explain why it ended up being a hit he
said is how people end up convincing
themselves that they can predict
something that they really can't because
in reality as context changes as the the
what he calls the chaos of culture
changes one's ability to look into the
future and predict what's going to work
is is virtually non-existent and that's
where um artists come into the picture
and really in his words are making
something internal for them almost
turning a blind eye to the fact that
this will ultimately be put out into the
world and when you get it just right
when the contextual cues of the culture
happen to line up with the message that
you're saying then you can have a Smash
Hit and a great example that he gives is
actually in the world of fashion and he
talks about how in the 9s it was such a
big deal to wear the huge logo of the
more expensive Brands and it really said
something about you to be able to afford
that and to wear that and to you know
make that a part of your identity but
when the Great Recession hit that really
fell out of favor and fast fashion
companies like Zara and H&M were the
ones that skyrocketed to popularity but
people couldn't have predicted that that
massive cultural change was going to
happen and they couldn't have predicted
the way that people were going to
respond to that so you get these massive
changes across all Industries based on
what's going on in culture now he does
take the time at the very end of the
book to prognosticate a little bit about
what the future of hits are going to
look like talking about Facebook talking
about the way that we can now get
real-time data about what people are
actually doing versus what they say they
do and which by the way is very very
interesting um in terms of of people say
one thing but are actually doing another
um and that's something that we see in
the analytics of our own footage like
for instance I know that statistically
most of you will not make it to this
part in the book review uh because we
know what the attenuation is of people
watching and listening to our content um
so it's really really fascinating and
what do you do like do I just peace out
and like wrap up now because I know most
people won't make it to this or do I
keep going and it goes back to that
notion of there is some element of
bernardis that's just creating for
themselves and then ultimately he he um
sort of the the bet for lack of a better
word that he makes on the future of hits
is what he calls the Disney method of
total merchandising and he talks about
how there is this self-reinforcing Loop
between the artistic creation and the
Commerce and literally um this was so
fascinating to me because this is
literally the bet that we're making at
impact Theory our bet is that there is a
self-reinforcing ideological Loop
between the creation and the ideological
Echo that people want to surround
themselves with through merchandising
and hearing like I even though I
understood Disney and that's literally
been a driving factor for us I didn't
understand it as well as he presented it
and how powerfully merchandising has
driven Disney from the beginning and I
can't believe more people don't do this
and I will just tell the rest of the
world the part that you're missing what
Disney understood is their content fit
into a very specific nich people knew
what it meant to go for a Disney film
and therefore the Disney characters
represented something very specific
that's exactly what we're doing at
impact Theory it's about empowerment so
everything that we're going to touch has
to do with empowerment so all the things
that you're going to surround yourself
with whether you're buying a t-shirt a
plush doll a wallpaper or toothbrush
whatever it's all going to Echo that
notion of empowerment and our bet is
that the world is swinging so hard that
way and people are moving out of the
fixed mindset into the growth mindset
that that is really going to be the bet
on what's going to be a hit So reading
this book was utterly fascinating
because it was somebody really putting
um words really encapsulating exactly
what I believe is happening and so all
the while I'm like he is literally
telling me that I'm not going to be able
to predict the be able to predict the
future and I believe him and yet I
believe I'm right about the future and
he actually covers that in the book and
he talks about how you need to be just a
little wrong at exactly the right time
because if everyone agreed with my
thinking then everyone would be doing
this but it's because just a very few
number of people really get that this is
where the world is going that I can talk
so openly about this and know that we're
going to out execute people and do it
faster than
people but that we're just a little bit
wrong we're just a little bit ahead of
the curve and that the world really will
catch up or and there's a great Scott
bsky quote let me see if I can pull this
up yep when 99% of people doubt your
idea you're either Gravely wrong or
about to make history all right after
reading this book I have to tell you I
think we're about to make history I
think that the stuff that he covers in
this book is utterly fascinating and
tells me that that is probably hubris
and that my ability to predict the
future uh is virtually zero but it is
always the people that have the guts
that think that they are right there
right at the moment when the shift is
about to happen that place a bet that
end up making the next big hit all right
guys this is a weekly show I am reading
this stuff for myself be completely
honest but I love to put it all together
and summarize it for you guys I hope
that you're getting as much out of this
as I am and as always I hope that you go
read the book uh don't think you've
gotten even the majority of what he goes
into I am I have but scratched the
surface so guys be sure to subscribe so
you can get the next one and until next
time my friends be legendary take care