Robitussen for My Ideavirus

The idea of ideaviruses is especially relevant to me today, as I am home sick with a cold. (If only we had HTML tags to punctuate sneezes and sniffles).

While Seth Godin’s ideas about sneezers don’t really sound any different than the concept of early adopters or any of a number of names meaning the same thing, I do think he has a very valid point that ideaviruses are most likely to thrive in a vacuum, like in his Audi example. Ideas, like viruses, survive best when there aren’t others to compete with.

The Bush administration took advantage of this concept during the 2004 election cycle. John Kerry was an unkown entity for many Americans. The Kerry team had the opportunity to build an image, but took their time deciding on a message. In many ways, no solid message was ever developed.

The Bush team capitalized on the image void took it upon themselves to fill the canvas and paint Kerry as cold, overly cerebral and, most notoriously, a flip flopper.

Future candidates would do well to remember this lesson and not leave the sort of voids where an opponents idea virus can thrive – or they may end up feeling sick to their stomachs.