Avatar, the most successful movie ever made, and the Hurt Locker, it’s David competitor, which took the Oscar.

How does that relate to asset management? Blackrock vs. Carmignace, Pimco vs. Ivy, and many many more examples.

We are seeing increasingly more of this concentration trend in the data.

Professional fund buyers, just like consumers, have limited attention span, more complex responsibilities, and less and less time to make decisions under greater uncertainty – we discussed this over dinner with Nassim Taleb recently in detail.

This triggers back to basics responses.

In mobile computing, this translates into Apple’s one button on the iPhone to deliver simplicity around great complexity.

In movies, it means you watch the Avatars and the Hurt Lockers and not much else.

In finance, it means mutual funds as a structure and blockbuster themes as the concrete conduit to invest for the long and not so long term.

The rewards are higher: $50+ billion to Bill Gross in a year, $35 billion to Templeton, $20 billion to Carmignac, as are the risks: 60% of leaders disappear each 5-10 years.

This leaves less room for error and shifts greater responsibility to brand, marketing and client service, since products never deliver all the time.

It’s when they disappoint – even ever so slightly – when the holistic customer experience takes over along with brand equity.

For fund managers this means tailored information delivery, dedicated microsites, local language support and regional and local websites and teams.

Welcome to the new normal, the high octane new world of back to basics and complex simplicity.