Testen: Versagen ist durchaus eine Option

Several years ago I was speaking at a marketing conference and had to follow NASA icons Gene Kranz and Jim Lovell, from the historic Apollo 13 mission that never landed on the moon. Mr. Kranz repeatedly used the phrase "failure is not an option" when describing his days running mission control and most certainly the story of Apollo 13. "Failure is not an Option" is also the title of his book that he was promoting at the time. As I listened and contemplated how I was going to follow these two American icons and pivot the audience from exciting space stories to discussing the need for relevant marketing, it occurred to me that; "failure must be an option." So I got up to the stage and reminded the audience that I was from Jupiter and knew nothing about bringing men back safely from the moon, however, that for us as marketers, we are one of the few professions where failure is not only tolerated, but actually is a necessary ingredient to optimizing programs. Failure is an element of testing; even simple A/B tests are predicated on the notion that one part will outperform (succeed) the other part, which is a degree of failure.