Schrodinger’s Cat And Marketing Strategy.
Let us consider the marketing strategy here as the cat. When the planning is done and the budget is decided, someone has to open the box that is someone has to see if the strategy succeeds or fails.
In the year 1935, an Austrian physicist Erwin Schrodinger proposed a thought experiment that would discuss the paradox of the Copenhagen interpretation of the quantum mechanics.
Schrodinger designed this thought experiment to see what the Copenhagen interpretations of the quantum mechanics would look like id that microscopic world was replaced with macroscopic world, something that people will be able to visualize.
In the experiment, the observer does not know, that whether or not the atom of the substance has decayed, and consequently whether or not the vial is broken releasing the poison, that will kill the cat.
Schrodinger’s Cat Experiment
The theoretical experiment of the Schrodinger is that he places a cat in a steel box which contains a radioactive trigger and a vial of poison. The experiment was designed as, when the radioactive substance will decay; it will trigger and break open the vial of poison, which will kill the cat inside. On the contrary, if this radioactive substance will not decay, the cat shall remain alive.
The paradox here is unknown. Since the chances of the cat dying are 50–50, we would not know if the cat is alive or dead until we open the box. So, since we don’t know if the cat is alive or dead until we open the box, the cat inside is said to be both, dead and alive. According to the quantum mechanics, this state is that of superstition.
Now what does Schrodinger’s Cat has to do anything with Marketing Strategy?
Let us consider the marketing strategy here as the cat. When the planning is done and the budget is decided, someone has to open the box that is someone has to see if the strategy succeeds or fails.
You can poke the strategy; you can analyze it so much to consider it as dead, but these assumptions will land you nowhere. Also, You have to apply it to know if it works. And this is exactly what most of the small businesses; the decision to open the box at the right time.
Open the Box
If you hesitate to open the box, there won’t be much harm. Only that your business will thrive on just a theoretical bliss.
It is as simple as that. Your marketing strategy will not be a success or even a failure if you don’t open the box. This is a paradox some of the small businesses find daunting.
A start-up lives in multiple states of uncertainty. You can’t solve your problems with a step-by-step approach. You cannot go like, first we will do the product, then the test, then we will study the market, and if it is all OK, we will set to monetize the product.
A start-up simply cannot strive on such conditions. You have to do everything at once; added value/product/market research/monetization/customers segmentation. In quantum physics, this is called as the intricacy.
The point being, even if you think that it is a strategy not worthy of applying, you never know, it may actually work. So you can’t base your business on your assumptions, you need to get out and take risks.
You need to identify some specific strategies that will best promote the brand. Simultaneously you also have to measure the success of it to make changes in that strategy. But even then, at the end of the day, you won’t know if it is successful unless you apply it and get the results. And once you get the results you can tailor it accordingly.
Fear is what holds us back most of the times. And in it, we are bound to do a few stupid things, like in this case, make assumptions without any proof.
Stop and think for a while, won’t this kill your business? So just try new things, it won’t hurt. After all, you have to get the cat out of the box. And unless you do that you will not know if the cat is dead or alive!
You have got to open the box!
