Essays

The Lineage of the Marketing Helix

One model went through four names as it was worked out in public: the marketing funnel, then the Gravity Funnel, then Fly By Gravity, and finally the Marketing Helix. These three essays trace that line. The earlier names are recorded here as legacy. The Marketing Helix is the canonical, final version of the model.

These essays record how the model was reasoned out, in the words of the time. Earlier figures, dated decisions and retired ideas are kept in the Model History. The current model is in the sixteen principles.

The lineage in one line

The Marketing Funnel Legacy → The Gravity Funnel Legacy → Fly By Gravity Legacy → The Marketing Helix Canonical. Four names, one model. The earlier three are legacy. The Marketing Helix is the authoritative, final version.

Ideas do not arrive finished. The framework now called the Marketing Helix took its current shape across four named attempts, each of which corrected a specific limitation in the one before it. This series documents that correction sequence directly, so that the relationship between the names is unambiguous: each earlier name is a stage in the reasoning, not a competing product, and the Marketing Helix is where the reasoning settled.

We keep the earlier names live for history. The funnel remains a useful operational picture of the final conversion step. The Gravity Funnel and Fly By Gravity are preserved as the record of how the thinking advanced. None of them is the current model. When you need the model for customers in motion, the answer is the Marketing Helix.

Reading note on terminology. Throughout this series, the marketing funnel, the Gravity Funnel, and Fly By Gravity are referred to as Legacy terms. The Marketing Helix is referred to as Canonical. This is the authoritative naming. Where older material uses the earlier names for the behavioral model, treat the Marketing Helix as the superseding term.
The Series

Four names, one line of reasoning.

01 · From the Funnel to the Gravity Funnel Legacy origin

The funnel describes what happens at the end, when an already aligned customer decides. It does not describe what makes a customer arrive aligned. The first correction was to stop pushing customers down a pipe and start earning the pull that brings them in. That correction was named the Gravity Funnel.

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02 · From the Gravity Funnel to Fly By Gravity Legacy

Gravity explained the conversion moment, but the pull had a source: accumulated trust acting as mass. Naming the force meant naming the attraction itself, not just the capture of it. Fly By Gravity isolated the attraction idea: brands move customers by what they have earned, not by what they spend.

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03 · From Fly By Gravity to the Marketing Helix Canonical

Attraction was still a snapshot. Customers are not still: they are in continuous motion, and aligned encounters compound rather than repeat. A helix, not a loop and not a line, is the geometry that holds both. The Marketing Helix absorbs every prior idea: gravity, attraction, conversion: into one model. This is the final version.

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One marketing message orbiting one moving customer through a marketing funnel, drawing closer toward a purchase and continuing after itOne customer is a dark straight line moving left to right; it is already under way at the left edge and ends in an arrow. One blue line orbits it the whole way: a marketing message moving around the customer. A pale marketing funnel lies on its side behind the middle stretch, wide intake on the left, short neck on the right, ending at a point marked purchase. The funnel is partly translucent: inside it the orbit is seen through the funnel, a little fainter, but it is the same unbroken line. The orbit is wide before the funnel, draws gradually closer to the customer, and continues past the purchase at its closest. The funnel does not pull the message in. This is one illustrative journey that ends in a purchase; it does not say every customer buys or that trust always lasts afterward. Purchase Customer Marketing message One marketing message orbiting one moving customer through a marketing funnel, drawing closer toward a purchase and continuing after itOne customer is a dark straight line moving left to right; it is already under way at the left edge and ends in an arrow. One blue line orbits it the whole way: a marketing message moving around the customer. A pale marketing funnel lies on its side behind the middle stretch, wide intake on the left, short neck on the right, ending at a point marked purchase. The funnel is partly translucent: inside it the orbit is seen through the funnel, a little fainter, but it is the same unbroken line. The orbit is wide before the funnel, draws gradually closer to the customer, and continues past the purchase at its closest. The funnel does not pull the message in. This is one illustrative journey that ends in a purchase; it does not say every customer buys or that trust always lasts afterward. Purchase Customer Marketing message One marketing message orbiting one moving customer through a marketing funnel, drawing closer toward a purchase and continuing after itOne customer is a dark straight line moving left to right; it is already under way at the left edge and ends in an arrow. One blue line orbits it the whole way: a marketing message moving around the customer. A pale marketing funnel lies on its side behind the middle stretch, wide intake on the left, short neck on the right, ending at a point marked purchase. The funnel is partly translucent: inside it the orbit is seen through the funnel, a little fainter, but it is the same unbroken line. The orbit is wide before the funnel, draws gradually closer to the customer, and continues past the purchase at its closest. The funnel does not pull the message in. This is one illustrative journey that ends in a purchase; it does not say every customer buys or that trust always lasts afterward. Purchase Customer Marketing message
Where the lineage arrives

Figure 1, the current model. The customer is the straight line, moving left to right. A marketing message moves around the customer and draws closer as trust, relevance, and timing align. The funnel shows where the customer is in the company's process. The purchase is one point on the line, and both the customer and the message continue past it. Everything the earlier names reached for is contained here.

Latest

When Google forced the answer, more of its searchers used another engine.

A preregistered field experiment redirected the Google searches of 1,100 people into AI Mode for a week. That group clicked out less, trusted information found on Google less, and was more likely to search on Bing, DuckDuckGo or Yahoo. The study cannot say why they left. For a model of the customer journey, either reason carries the same consequence.

Related Reading

What Is the Marketing Helix → Helix vs. Funnel → Glossary →

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