Professor Elam

Sunday April 8 2012

If asked, most business students will claim that they would like to make a lot of money. 

So far I have had zero zip nada success getting either the students or our marketing professors to see the rather obvious link between social mood and marketing success.  

Here is yet another example. This Sunday the Express News interviewed San Antonio 911
Dispatch Sergeant Joe McKinney. His third novel Flesh Eaters in the four novel series Dead World chronicles a hurricane flooded Houston teeming with zombies hujngry for trapped survivors. 

Hey I can't make this stuff up. Joe just won the 2012 Bram Stoker Award for superior achievement for this (Stoker wrote the original Dracula novel). 

Joe grew up in Clear Lake south of Houston, I was a kid in Bellaire in Southwest Houston. And anyone who endured the heat, humidity, mosquitoes, and torrential rains would indeed like to see the whole place sunk for good, eliminating human habitation for future generations. So no wonder he had zombies descend on the place. Or as wikipedia points out,

Zombie fiction is now a sizeable sub-genre of horror, usually describing a breakdown of civilization occurring when most of the population become flesh-eating zombies —a zombie apocalypse.   But I digress. 

My point is that connecting with what is popular in social mood brings success. Here a policeman has the right formula. The guy that started LULU, selling high priced tank tops and sweat pants for yoga class has it as well. There are dozens of Mexican restaurants here but somehow someway the simple walk up and take your pick business model of Chipolte Mexican Grill CMG made that stock a runaway success. Take a look at 

the market perspective for an update on Abe Lincoln, Vampire Killer, coming at a budget of $70 M to a theater near you this summer. 

Tune in and turn on to socionomics, I am headed to the national convention next weekend.