Marketing is an organic creature: looking at marketing from the perspective of antifragility

Before we start, let me first let you know: what are strong (strong), fragile, and anti-fragile, as explained below:

There is a human resources director who has worked in an investment bank for 20 years. His job is very stable and his income is as expected every month. However, suddenly a financial crisis occurs and his income is instantly reduced to zero, and the chance of returning to his original income is very low. This is “fragility”. (As shown below)

[](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2TEQJXIL5r_7Lw6oKP4G6fXEcp9mT5JisDK5JSGoV-7DHj-VF8mSR3VC6Z_Cirjb7lbcD4D 7b5iHGnnDzwWdQwM_Zn_94m9tcG9czVOfUe6fHN5Z5AVyNjq1lmMDTCg-BJrnxzXL1i d4/s1600/%E9%8A%80%E8%A1%8C%E5%93%A1%E7%9A%84%E7%94%9F%E6%B6%AF.jpg)

Although a taxi driver’s income will fluctuate with the economic cycle, basically in the long run his income will be quite stable. As long as he drives every day to do business, the long-term average income of good days, bad days, and ordinary days will not be affected by the outside world (except for exceptions such as wars and devastating natural disasters). We call him very “strong”. (As shown below)

[ ](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRMvveCx07yZzZv4tg-KIdZFGsBRYsOX9U91tAKYWqN9lgpLwApv1DiXDI2MGhAUP7cLC67Rw4ye JyS00XYBwb5aihhMUmtAIWzAa9H_tvX3RhZoLxriQgmhRy-rzcn7D_IYNyMO2FgN8/s1 600/%25E5%258F%25B8%25E6%25A9%259F%25E7%2594%259F%25E6%25B6%25AF.jpg)

And what is “antifragility”? Take me as a personal example. I am an office worker. Over the past ten years, I have changed at least thirty jobs (but all in the field of marketing). As the times and trends change (including luck, of course), I continue to adapt and modify, and continue to try and make mistakes. Every mistake makes me more professional, and the harder I hit, the stronger I am. Note that this is different from the above-mentioned concept of “strengthening”. Antifragility is only the ability to repair oneself, to recover and learn from every injury, and become more resilient than before.

Usually our marketing methods are very “fragile” (as shown below). We use what has happened to speculate on the unknown future. Basically, your marketing plan is nonsense and guessed based on personal subjective consciousness. Even if you are lucky and have good results once, your luck will usually not be so good next time.

(We are not discussing “robust” companies such as oil companies here, but they are also quite fragile over time)

[ ](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivSNxtzKtvgpLk0JoPW7GN-UXT59y9RGV_T4tT1AISJjQ10TMjLgG6HXZA_oE6UuzI89_AC3UTKveD_r4Qb kmW3iqkLzRasG19KaV0PB49yeNs5hAv686l-YF-0wnhLJiwE8-SbTtvEMM/s1600/%25E8%2 584%2586%25E5%25BC%25B1%25E7%259A%2584%25E8%25A1%258C%25E9%258A%25B7.jpg)

The schematic diagram above is the planning of our general enterprises. It is linear and stable. It is similar to a stable office worker walking on a tightrope of probability. As long as an unexpected error occurs in any link, the entire plan will undergo devastating deviations. If the enterprise invests too many resources in this, this error may cause the entire enterprise to collapse, so I call it “fragile marketing.”

(Basically, you cannot predict anything, such as 911, the financial crisis, food safety issues caused by plasticizers, the breakthrough point of certain disruptive innovative technologies, etc. The unknowable variables are far higher than those you know and can control.)

So what would “antifragile marketing” look like? Here’s the picture:

[ ](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJPdqxyWRAECoZDCB3_jADyqRJ4fdfRUksXMyT77Qi_y129lAAfYDsA2AGSdVXR8Rp5-olL3iTxh acikWM1eN-JzREZB2OJsGaPmOaesZJfel0K_6bkXyamNSNO-Xp8wZLR8WzG9d1TrA/s1 600/%25E6%259C%2589%25E6%25A9%259F%25E8%25A1%258C%25E9%258A%25B7.jpg)

We can think of a marketing team as an organism. The so-called organism will repair itself and learn to be stronger in the next stage. For example, if you continue to do weight training, your muscles will become more and more developed. Some weaker cells will die and be replaced by stronger cells. The overall muscle tissue will be eliminated because the weak cells will be eliminated, and the strength of the remaining cells will increase on average.

Therefore, a marketing team should contain many small cells that compete with each other and develop their own marketing strategy directions and methods, each with their own “Try & Error_”. Small marketing cells that are poor, unable to convince others, and make mistakes will continue to be eliminated, making the overall marketing strategy stronger and more anti-fragile.

Small cells will continue to make mistakes and die, but after the death of marketing small cells, they will leave behind genes (that is, “information”). This gene will modify the genetic code of the gene itself due to previous mistakes, so that the new cells will have further resistance and will not make the mistakes that the previous generation made. This is “evolution”. The focus is on the dynamic and continuous evolutionary process. There cannot be large-scale mistakes that cause overall death. Errors must be limited.

If we magnify this concept to see that the entire economic environment is not limited to a single company, it will be as follows:

[ ](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKiZwmQ_MTPcA2SDicM8PrsCHEJdTaF3jZ4YDEvT7lM0FpkySfv9YVF6ZT4064M33JJFS0IxX0cN lu2qXGBhN3RWiD0F-bqaRReih_E_D8W4ZnqTfPOzIfT6sfqIbFN7OHpm3O_N6creo/s1 600/%25E6%259C%2589%25E6%25A9%259F%25E7%25B6%2593%25E6%25BF%259F.jpg)

Nietzsche: What does not kill me makes me stronger.

Our explanation here is: What doesn’t kill me does not make me stronger, but it escapes because I am stronger than others; but it kills others, and the entire group is now on average stronger than before, because the weak are gone and someone pays the price to improve the entire system.

Weaker companies will be eliminated and die, making the overall economic environment stronger. What doesn’t kill me will kill others and make me stronger.

(Today, the subsidies, tax cuts, and preferential loans provided by the Taiwanese government to enterprises. It is said that these enterprises are too big to fail, which is the reason why Taiwan’s economy has stagnated and cannot progress in the next generation. The final result of South Korea’s vigorous support of Samsung will also have serious sequelae. When Samsung has problems, it will lead to devastating consequences for the entire South Korean economy. That is, Samsung is strong but not anti-fragile.) From individuals to departments, companies and even the entire country and the world, everyone must understand the importance of “anti-fragility”. Randomness and fluctuation are necessary conditions for anti-fragility. You must withstand a certain degree of random damage and fluctuations, and evolve and grow from them to resist unknown future changes. Conceptually, it is very similar to Taiwan where small earthquakes often release energy. If there are no small earthquakes for hundreds of years, once an earthquake occurs, it will be devastating.

Today’s managers are often committed to avoiding randomness, fluctuations and other uncontrollable variables. They will try their best to suppress changes and prevent problems from happening. For example, Greenspan used a large amount of money printing to delay and cover up the fluctuations of the economic recession. However, the problem is not solved, it will only be delayed, and its destructiveness will soar to catastrophic consequences. Therefore, you should accept randomness, fluctuations and other uncontrollable factors in your marketing plan, and do not try to predict the future. Marketing is a kind of phenomenology, not theory and prediction, it is intuitive observation and experience.

You need to adapt to this world in an organic way, accept randomness and fluctuations, and establish an environment that can constantly “Try & Error_” to avoid becoming a fragile company or individual.

Author: Lin Wenjie

Reference books:

Antifragile Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb Chunk Culture Publishing

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Further reading

• Wenjies’ introduction to the era of experience economy
• How to detonate a pop? Manipulate choice?
• I want to “have sex” with you.

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