A lot of people would like to know how to create a hit because of the perks and rewards that accrue from commercial success. Wouldn’t a lot of people love to replicate the commercial success of the Beatles, Stephen King or Steven Spielberg? If only there was a surefire formula to achieving success in the public eye, or at least your target audience…
Image by RecoilRick
Let’s be clear on the definition, though: a hit is some people of piece or cultural output that not only receives popular acclaim with an audience, but it is also something that lots of people are willing to pay money for. Popular songs, TV shows, and movies are often called hits when they meet the twin criteria of popular and financial success.
Hits don’t always meet with critical acclaim, at least not at first. Critical acclaim is usually a sign of high quality content: content that’s well planned, created, and delivered with skill. Some hits are panned by the critics, but they still attract an audience. There’s no guarantee that a well-made, quality product will be a hit, and vice versa.
What makes something great and something else crap? What is quality? Why do we love some things and hate others? And does that have any bearing on something becoming a hit?
Some things that seem to make content a hit include: authenticity, familiarity, flattery, aesthetic/pleasure, honesty, cleverness, craft, hard work, love, humor, surprise, uniqueness… Yes, sometimes good craft does produce a hit, e.g. most Beatles albums and singles.
However, the successful combinations of hit-making attributes vary, just like the idea that some people are more influential than others when the conditions are right (which is one of the takeaways from Duncan Watt’s research which seemed to poke holes in The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell)
Is this why so much product is produced, most of which fails?
Yes, because we can rarely forecast what will be a hit, nor do we always know the correct combination of factors that contribute to making a hit.
Here’s a short anecdote to illustrate this further:
Years ago, a writer of my acquaintance was talking about the creative industries in general: film, TV, movies, books, comic books, etc. and the massive amounts of product that are flung out to the world each year. There’s good content, bad content, mediocre content, content that should have been left to marinate for awhile and other content that is released past its expiry date. And yet it all gets released by the ton.
Similarly, thousands of tons of new physical products are released each year: cars, clothes, electronics, sports gear, food products, investments, etc. Very few of them are successful and establish a foothold in the hearts, minds, and wallets of the average consumer. Yet it all floods out, accompanied by barrages of advertising, free samples, product placement, and pricing.
Why does all of this content of varying quality get inflicted upon the world?
My writer friend’s answer: because no one knows what will be a hit. Public tastes are fickle and also subject to many different influences and factors. And so content creators bombard the general public with content and, if they are lucky, some of those things become popular and financially successful. That is how hits are generated: you create and release new products until you find out which ones are successful.
Seinfeld, Friends, the X-Files, Star Trek, and many other popular franchises did not start out as hits. Nor did they all have unambiguous success in creating “hit” sequels. Fortunately, they were all given enough time and energy to continue on until they became hits.
Content creators truly, truly can’t determine what will be popular or not unless they have supernatural instincts or tons of experience from which to infer conclusions. Neither of which are foolproof.
Forecasting is a tough, tough business – you never get it 100% right, especially if you repeat the last thing that was successful.
So you want to have a hit?
First, create content.
Second, keep creating content until you create something that your intended audience likes, trying to do a better job each time. And don’t stop trying.
Third, repeat.
I don’t think that anything else has as good of a chance at being successful.
What do you think?
I think good quality content is the beginning foundation of a hit. Who it's marketed to, and the network of influence behind it are the determining factors too. What defines a hit, amount of sales, page views, comments?
Good question, Mike… and Mark. Most often think of a hit in terms of mass appeal or popularity. I have never held with popular vote as a method of defining a hit as this tends to reinforce the idea I need someone else's approval to be right – and if I don't have it I must be wrong.
While that view is more black and white, I can most certainly appreciate the need to have some form of grading scale and people often want to share things with friends they enjoy. And while we are at it, why don't we make some money doing it?
I don't know if I wholly agree with the conclusion as a recipe for “hit-creation”, though. I think in blogging it may be easier to keep trying mainly due to low operating overhead. To get a hit in other industries might be a little more costly.
Mike & Ken:
I guess the point that I was trying to make was that old school media pushes tons of content (movies, TV shows, etc.) pushing formulas based on the past. If you've ever noticed, if a TV show format is popular one season, then you'll see multiple clones in the subsequent season. Trying to predict the future based on the past.
Moreover, quality is a tricky thing. Great content sometimes fails while schlock sometimes wins.
It's a tricky, trick thing.