The Marketing Long Tail

Chris Anderson gives a look into the changing of trends in technology in his 2004 TED Talk, “Technology’s Long Tail.” He states that timing is everything. New technologies and new ways to find unique products that customers desire have created what is known as the “long tail.”

Anderson’s TED Talk never specifically discussed the long tail but more on the life cycle of most products in the technology industry.

“All important technologies go through four stages in their life,” Anderson said. Every product will go through at least one step, while others will achieve all four.

The first stage is when the product falls below the critical price range.  He gave the examples of gene sequencing and Aids drugs. Honestly, I was confused at what he meant when he said “fall below the critical price” because the numbers he threw out were still very large. I don’t see the world in numbers like some business people do so that may just be my lack of knowledge.

Anderson’s second stage referred to the point when the product will rise above a critical mass or its penetration into the market. Depending on the product and its popularity, this stage could last for an extremely long time. Anderson said Wi-Fi has still not moved past this point, and we all know how huge Wi-Fi is.

The thing Wi-Fi hasn’t done yet is take the place of another technology, which is the third stage in a product’s life cycle.

Further into the technology’s life, it will begin to commoditize and become replaceable, also leading it to become “free.” With today’s  technology, long distance calls have definitely hit this last stage. It used to cost so much for every minute, but today long distance fees are becoming more and more obsolete.

These examples were from 2004, and in technology 12 years is an extremely long time which allows so much change. Hearing Anderson’s examples gave me a clearer picture into what he was talking about, so I would love to know what some 2016 examples would be.

Chris Anderson didn’t actually talk about the long tail. The title of the video was "Technology's long tail", and he never once even mentioned it or told what it was. Thanks to Google, I was able to find his explanation. 
"The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail," according to longtail.com
So in simple terms we are no longer confined to finding the most bought, most popular products at large retailers. Any product out there, especially online, has just as much chance to be purchased and grow in the market. I guess that's where the life cycle of technologies ties in. It's possible for a small online retailer to sell a product that could eventually make it to the third or even fourth stage.

Image from: http://www.longtail.com/about.html

Back to the long tail, in the graph the vertical axis refers to sales, and the horizontal represents products, according to Anderson. This is where the term long tail comes from. There are so many products apart of the tail that don't necessarily sell a lot. That's not necessarily the case anymore. With so many choices, these niche product groups are getting easier to access and find, leading to a bump in sales. Companies are able to make more personalized and targeted products, and customers love that. 
Its actually pretty cool to think about, especially for a retailer that has unique products on the wed. I'll be curious to see how this trend grows in the future. 

Check out Chris Anderson's TED Talk here!