Big Bang Explained

Big Bang week begins at Brand Autopsy...

The authors of BANG!, Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval, run the Kaplan Thaler Group (KTG), an advertising agency based in New York City. Both have enjoyed a storied career in the advertising game having been involved with numerous well-known advertising campaigns. KTG's current client roster include AFLAC, Pilot Pen, Ruby Tuesday, Clairol, American Red Cross, Blimpie, and Gruner+Jahr Publishing.

Like most advertising/marketing agencies, KTG designs their communication strategies using their own uniquely developed system. This Big Bang theory is KTG's official business strategy to creating ideas.

In an interview, the authors explained KTG’s Big Bang theory this way: “It's a marketing idea that is wildly successful because it is disruptive and illogical. Big Bangs alter the landscape forever by introducing a way of thinking about a product or service that did not exist previously and that changes our entire pattern and attitudes about it.”

In the book, the authors outline a ten-point definition of what constitutes a Big Bang.

A Big Bang “...expands exponentially in the culture.” (pg. 4)

“A Big Bang is designed to help make a brand explode onto the marketplace virtually overnight.” (pg. 6)

“A Big Bang creates an ever-expanding universe for a product, and turns occasional users into fierce loyalists.” (pg. 6)

“A Big Bang disrupts. It is about ideas that are simply too outrageous, too different, too polarizing to go unnoticed.” (pg. 6)

“A Big Bang bucks conventional wisdom and stops people in their tracks.” (pg. 6)

“A Big Bang is illogical.” (breaking through conventional thought with illogical thought) (p. 8)

“A Big Bang has a dramatic, immediate and irreversible impact.” (pg. 11)

“A Big Bang can’t be ignored. Big Bangs are intense ideas. They are intentionally polarizing.” (pg. 13)

“A Big Bang becomes an icon.” (pg. 14)

“A Big Bang disrupts the norm and creates a new universe.” (pg. 214)

Our next blog entry, Big Bang or Small Thing?, will ask you if the Big Bang examples mentioned in the book are indeed Big Bangs or ... are they Small Things?