You know those framed posters they sell at knick-knack shops that say things like “Everything I Know about Life I Learned from My Cat”? Sure you do. Well, if you read some of the popular marketing bloggers out there — especially the younger set — you come to understand that there’s a lot you can learn from kids and video games.

Enter my two little rascals. I was sitting in my living room last night while my kids engaged in a fierce round of Wii Bowling. My daughter, the younger of the two, was mopping the virtual parquet with her brother. On her fourth consecutive strike, her brother said, “Man, I always beat you at real bowling.” That’s when the wheels started turning.

You Don’t Need to Build Digital Muscle

My son is seven, and my daughter is five. Even with the age difference, my son is among the stockier kids in his class, and my daughter is one the most petite in hers. So when we go bowling, as we are wont to do every so often, my son is easily able to swing around the kid-sized balls. My daughter, on the other hand, looks like a tiny female Sisyphus.

That strength discrepancy doesn’t exist in the world of Wii. My daughter can chuck it with the best of ‘em. The pins don’t fall over when she bowls. They explode.

Ambient Equalizers

It’s a feature of the Wii ecosystem that maximum power is unusually easy to achieve. That levels the playing field considerably. Now the pro gamers with incredible manual dexterity can be taken out by arthritic senior citizens, simply because what the pro gamers do exceptionally well doesn’t matter in Wii bowling.

This is what I call an ambient equalizer: an inherent part of a system that negates the natural advantages that one kind of person has over another. And they’re all over the place, if you look for them.

Here’s another example: Imagine you’re waiting in line at the bank at 5:00 on a Friday, waiting to cash your paycheck. (I know, who cashes paychecks at a teller anymore? Stay with me.) The line is a mile long. Behind you is a guy in a designer suit, urgently checking his watch every fifteen seconds. In walks the bank manager. He greets the man behind you with a smile and a handshake, and after a minute of idle chitchat, ushers the man into his private office. Three minutes later, the man in the suit emerges from the office and leaves with a smile on his face and a spring in his step. You’re still waiting in line.

Now imagine the same scenario, only you’re waiting to deposit your check at an ATM. You think you’re going to let the guy in the suit leave before you? Fat chance. Same people, same basic situation, but that slight change of venue becomes an ambient equalizer. At the teller, the guy with the bigger bank account gets preferential treatment. In line at the ATM, he doesn’t. So which method of getting paid will you choose when the eagle flies next Friday? Thought so.

The Web as an Ambient Equalizer

Have you ever seen a photo of Perez Hilton? Ugly sumbitch, ain’t he? (Not that I would win a beauty pageant, mind you.) And yet every time we want to know something about a celebrity, we turn to him. If Perez had pursued traditional media, he never would have made a name for himself; television is for beautiful people, and even Hilton’s flamboyant personality would have at best blended in at the average gossip rag.

Perez Hilton is a celebrity because he recognized early on that the web combines the best of both the print and TV worlds. Like print, the web doesn’t care if you’re pretty. Like TV, personality often matters more than content. With a little effort, Hilton found himself on a level playing field with both beautiful TV personalities and the top gossip mag writers.

Pretty cool, right?

Find Your Own Equalizers

Can you think of a situation where your competitors don’t have a discernible advantage over you or your company? I’ll bet you can. And I’ll bet you can think of a way to spend more time competing in those environments in ways that showcase your strengths.

Now, I’ll leave it to you to figure out where those places are, but I’d like to suggest one to you. One of the justifications that I often give to clients for using social media is that there are dozens of brands in a given industry competing for eyeballs. To “win” this game, you don’t have to have the biggest marketing budget or the cheapest product. All you have to do is provide better value.

The best part? “Better” in this case is totally subjective. No one can point to a social initiative and say, “This method provides the best possible ROI.” So until further notice, you can come up with a more successful initiative than your biggest competitor. Guaranteed.

Apart from social media, where do you find ambient equalizers?

Photo credit: Sean Dreilinger