I am a Seth Godin fan.  I agree with many of his thoughts and ways.  So today, I was surprised when I saw that his blog has comments disabled.

Anyway, on to my post…

Seth’s ranting about the occasional "Under New Management" sign you see on a shop’s window:

Why would anyone put a sign like this up on her store?

If I liked your store before, now I’m on notice to be careful–it might not be as good.

If I didn’t like your store before, why on earth am I
paying attention to your little sign and why should I go out of my way
to take another chance?

This is a vivid symbol of the ego-centric nature of most marketing. The sign is about the owner, not about the prospect.

He is half-right about the sign being about the owner. Actually, the sign is about the location, the physical store.  That’s one of the friction areas in markets still bound by the economics of scarcity.  I care if the dry cleaned on my block is under new management; it’s relevant to me whether I liked the old place, or not. 

In markets where the friction of location has disappeared, the sign is almost meaningless, as Seth says.

I just wanted to point out the distinction.