Fall Off the Radar

Recently, I had the uncomfortable feeling that fate had forgotten about me. Not that anything was particularly wrong, it’s just that nothing was going…period. Personally and professionally, I was in limbo.

For a human being, these periods of quiet are inevitable and desirable. They allow us to take a break, assess our situation, readjust, and move on. The farmer knows that even a bountiful field must lie fallow periodically in order to regenerate and continue to produce future harvests. Why should it be any different for a person…or a brand?

Though we try to deny it, business is as cyclical as the harvest. Brands rise and fall with the currents of popular culture. One day you’re hot, the next you are decidedly not. Today more than ever, commerce seems a perpetual popularity contest.
As someone who studies the momentum in pop culture in order to keep brands on the grid, the question I am asked most often when we are successful is, “How do we sustain this momentum?” My response: You can’t. So, don’t even try.

Think about the brands out there that have mastered the cycle. They are our perennials. They blossom, dazzle, retract and disappear again and again (granted, some cycles are longer than others): Apple, GE, Nike, and possibly right now, The Gap. How about pop music’s reigning queen, Madonna. No one makes use of the downtime like Madonna.

Brands need time to lie fallow, too. It’s part of the natural cycle of things that consumers should fall in love with you, out of love with you, and back in love with you, again and again. The trick is not to be obsessed with your brand’s popularity (which can be blinding), but to be obsessed with having an accurate idea of where your brand’s momentum is headed at any given time (which can be painful and biting). Is it rising or falling? The sooner you are aware that a fallow period is on the way, the more effectively you can embrace it. Switch your energy and efforts from an external to an internal focus. Use the time to retool your offering, business, culture, whatever it is that will make for a fertile harvest when you decide to plant your next seed.

Don’t be afraid to fall off the grid. It can be liberating. It’s like my friend, Sarah, said at the height of the Paris Hilton craze of 2005, “I just want to miss her. Can she please go away for ten minutes so we can all miss her a little bit?” Downtime is a gift. Relish it. It might do you some good to be missed a little bit, too.