Marketing's Reversibility Advantage: Try Everything, Make Noise
Product changes are near-permanent; marketing changes cost nothing, so experiment relentlessly.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 90%
A strategy rule built on the asymmetry between product and marketing: product decisions are expensive and hard to reverse, while marketing experiments have almost no lasting cost, so marketing should default to bold, high-variance bets. Use it to decide how aggressively to experiment in a given function.
Origin
As a PM, Herzberg believed 'less is more' because every feature costs the most valuable resource (engineering time), complicates the product, and can rarely be removed in B2B. Moving to marketing, she realized it's the opposite: a flopped video or campaign has no maintenance, no tech debt, no lasting footprint. So she resolved to try everything and make noise, most memorably scrapping the standard cyber booth for a Wizard-of-Oz theme at RSA.
Core principles
- 01Product additions are near-irreversible and carry compounding maintenance cost; be conservative.
- 02Marketing experiments have no maintenance, no tech debt, no lasting cost; be aggressive.
- 03When the downside of a failed try is near-zero, optimize for standing out over playing safe.
How to run it
- 1
Classify the bet by reversibility
Ask whether a mistake would be expensive and permanent (product) or costless and forgettable (most marketing). Let that set your risk appetite.
Watch out In B2B especially, a feature you add even for one customer is very hard to take back and complicates every future feature.
- 2
In low-cost domains, try everything
Because a flopped post or campaign disappears with no cost, run many bold experiments rather than one safe bet.
Pro tip If a video flops, post a different one tomorrow; 'no maintenance, bye-bye, forgot it ever happened.'
- 3
Optimize the bold bets to stand out
Deliberately go opposite to category norms to get noticed when nobody knows you exist (bright/optimistic in a fear-driven category, a themed booth in a sea of black-and-red).
Pro tip Themed booths became a repeatable Wiz signature that competitors later imitated.
Watch out Accept that a bold bet can be a hit or an embarrassing failure; the low cost is what makes the gamble rational.
In the wild
For RSA, the 'Super Bowl of security,' Herzberg scrapped the classic cyber booth (red, black, hoodies, fear messaging) for a bright, optimistic Wizard-of-Oz theme with actors, terrified it would look bizarre.
→ Five times the foot traffic of the prior year in the exact same space and spend; themed booths became a durable Wiz signature copied by competitors.
Common mistakes
Applying product-style caution to marketing
Treating marketing bets as heavyweight and irreversible, so you play safe and blend in when the low cost of failure actually rewards bold, high-variance experiments.
Is it for you?
Best for
Early-stage marketers and founders needing awareness fast with limited brand recognition.
Not ideal for
Irreversible, high-cost decisions like core product architecture or B2B feature commitments.
From the transcript
“marketing is quite the opposite in my opinion there's no cost to anything no maintenance to anything no technical depth no anything”
“let's try everything I'm trying to make noise”
“the amount of people that stopped by your booth was like um five times the amount of people that stopped by the year before and…”
From the episode
Building Wiz: the fastest-growing startup in history
Raaz Herzberg (CMO and VP Product Strategy)