Category: Advertising

Why Facts Alone Won’t Always Persuade

“Facts tell, but stories sell” — Jim Doyle

It’s interesting to watch the political left and right — especially those at the extremes — shout past each other. Each has its own set of facts, and each is firmly convinced that if the other side just accepted these facts the argument would be over.

And each believes that the other side’s “facts” are lies.

Seth Godin tackles “The Limits of Evidence-Based Marketing”, using as an example an acquaintance who is firmly convinced that the vaccine for polio is harmful. Stacks of information and studies from the Gates Foundation and the World Health Organization — “evidence-based marketing” — would not change the acquaintance’s mind.

…evidence isn’t the only marketing tactic that is effective. In fact, it’s often not the best tactic. What would change his mind, what would change the mind of many people resistant to evidence is a series of eager testimonials from other tribe members who have changed their minds. When people who are respected in a social or professional circle clearly and loudly proclaim that they’ve changed their minds, a ripple effect starts. First, peer pressure tries to repress these flip-flopping outliers. But if they persist in their new mindset, over time others may come along. Soon, the majority flips. It’s not easy or fast, but it happens.

Which is why testimonial advertising is so powerful, and why I push the television salespeople I coach to replace the charts and graphs with stories of clients who’ve used the station and won.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Email Phil Bernstein here.

Like what you’re reading? Sign up for Phil Bernstein’s free advertising and marketing e-newsletter here.

Become a Facebook Fan of “Doctor” Phil Bernstein, Portland’s Advertising Expert  here.

More Choice = Less Action

I recently walked into a McDonald’s in Orlando, Florida carrying a simple set of instructions: return to the hotel with three Egg McMuffins and three orders of hash browns.

I walked up to the counter and placed my order.

Me: Three Egg McMuffins and three orders of hash browns, please.

Woman at counter: Our Egg McMuffins are $2.59 each or two for $3.00.

Me: Okay, give me four.

Woman: How about the hash browns? They’re a dollar each or two for $1.50.

Me (thinking furiously): Umm… okay, I’ll just take two.

A few minutes went by, and then she was back.

Woman: We’re short one round egg, and cooking one will take a few minutes. Or you can have a folded egg now.

Me: I’ll take the folded egg.

When she brought out my food she threw a couple of apple turnovers into the bag at no charge — “for the inconvenience.”

Two thoughts occurred to me as I returned to the hotel:

1. I had just gotten a screamin’ deal: four Egg McMuffins, two orders of hash browns, and two apple turnovers for about nine bucks.

2. The next time I’m in Orlando, I will go out of my way to avoid that particular McDonald’s.

The woman behind the counter probably believed that she was helping me by offering the discounts.

In reality, she was making my life difficult. I wanted a nice, simple transaction, and instead I got something complicated.

The experience stuck in my mind a few days later when I was asked to evaluate a TV commercial for an aesthetic medicine practice. The ad suggested two possible actions: call on the phone for an appointment, or log onto the practice’s web site.

I advised the clinic to simplify the message and just give viewers instructions to call on the phone. Advertisers often find that just making this simple change significantly increases the response from the campaign.

The strategy seems counter-intuitive, but the reasoning is sound: a viewer faced with a phone number and a web address in 30 seconds won’t have the time or mental bandwidth to write down both. Faced with a decision about which one to remember, many people wind up remembering neither.

In “The Paradox of Choice”, Barry Schwartz discussed a series of studies in which car buyers were offered an array of choices:

Even though their decision was purely hypothetical, participants experienced substantial negative emotion when choosing between Cars A and B. And if the experimental procedure gave them the opportunity, they refused to make the decision at all. So the researchers concluded that being forced to confront trade-offs in making decisions makes people unhappy and indecisive.

Participants in these studies showed the pattern of reluctance to make trade-offs whether the stakes were high or low. Confronting any trade-off, it seems, is incredibly unsettling. And as the available alternatives increase, the extent to which choices will require trade-offs will increase as well.

What, then, do people do if virtually all decisions involve trade-offs and people resist making them? One option is to postpone or avoid the decision.

The last thing you want when you advertise is for your prospect to postpone or avoid a decision. Paradoxical though it may seem, offering one choice instead of two will increase the likelihood that your prospect will actually take action.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Email Phil Bernstein here.

Like what you’re reading? Sign up for Phil Bernstein’s free advertising and marketing e-newsletter here.

Become a Facebook Fan of Phil Bernstein, Portland’s Advertising Expert  here.

When “Editorial” and “Advertising” Don’t Talk

Rod Schwartz’ RodSpots Blog has a lovely example of what happens when “news” covers a story about the dangers of alcohol, and the sales department closes a deal with a bar.

___________________________________________________________________________

Email Phil Bernstein here.

Like what you’re reading? Sign up for Phil Bernstein’s free advertising and marketing e-newsletter here.

Become a Facebook Fan of Phil Bernstein, Portland’s Advertising Expert  here.

A Budding New Advertising Category

This isn’t a new product, but it’s a new advertising category for most of us:

The category is medical marijuana. For most of our lives, it’s been against the law everywhere in the country. But in the past few years, a steadily increasing number of communities have decriminalized the possession and use of the drug for certain medical purposes. In those communities, “dispensaries” have sprung up to handle the demand.

Guess what? They want to advertise! Print publications are taking the money, and some broadcasters are beginning to accept it as well.

Here’s how the New York Times put it in a recent article:

What would happen in the many communities now allowing medical marijuana had been a subject of much hand-wringing. But few predicted this: that it would be a boon for local newspapers looking for ways to cope with the effects of the recession and the flight of advertising — especially classified listings — to Web sites like Craigslist.

But in states like Colorado, California and Montana where use of the drug for health purposes is legal, newspapers — particularly alternative weeklies — have rushed to woo marijuana providers. Many of these enterprises are flush with cash and eager to get the word out about their fledgling businesses.

“Medical marijuana has been a revenue blessing over and above what we anticipated,” said John Weiss, the founder and publisher of The Independent, a free weekly. “This wasn’t in our marketing plan a year ago, and now it is about 10 percent of our paper’s revenue.”  It is hard to measure what share of the overall market they account for, but ads for medical marijuana providers and the businesses that have sprouted up to service them — tax lawyers, real estate agents, security specialists — have bulked up papers in large metropolitan news markets like Los Angeles, San Francisco and Denver.

It’s not just the alternative weeklies who are accepting the business. Respectable mainstream dailies like the Denver Post and The Bozeman Daily Chronicle are also running ads from these businesses. As print continues to struggle, more newspapers are likely to decide that it’s silly to forgo the revenue.

Is it time for television stations to think about the once-unthinkable? Perhaps. There is significant evidence that society’s view of marijuana is shifting. Some state legislators, strapped for cash, are looking at  a variety of legalize-it-and-tax-it schemes. And a follow-up article in the Times discusses a related, somewhat ironic phenomenon: families in which elderly parents, suffering from cancer and other illnesses, are now asking their boomer kids to bring them the drug to ease their symptoms.

Here are the states in which medical marijuana has been decriminalized: Alaska, California, Colorado, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. Each has its own rules, regulations, and quirks. You can find a basic summary here.

I recently discussed the issue during a television station sales meeting, and learned that one enterprising AE had already put two clients on the air. Perhaps it’s not surprising that this station is in a college town…

If you’re an ad rep, you should talk to your manager before you start cold calling, if only to save an argument later. Find out whether the subject’s been discussed, whether your station or group is willing to take the business, and what restrictions there would be. Do not ask if you can do trade.

And keep in mind that even if the answer’s “no” today, it might turn into a “yes” if your local daily paper starts making good money on it.

___________________________________________________________________________

Email Phil Bernstein here.

Like what you’re reading? Sign up for Phil Bernstein’s free advertising and marketing e-newsletter here.

Become a Facebook Fan of Phil Bernstein, Portland’s Advertising Expert  here.

You Know Your Ad Campaign Has Entered Popular Culture…

…when Sesame Street does a parody, and never mentions the product — because they don’t need to.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkd5dJIVjgM&feature=player_embedded]

Congratulations to Wieden + Kennedy and Old Spice.

___________________________________________________________________________

Email Phil Bernstein here.

Like what you’re reading? Sign up for Phil Bernstein’s free advertising and marketing e-newsletter here.

Become a Phil Bernstein Portland’s Advertising Expert Facebook Fan here.