Psychology and Marketing

I recently read the book “Made to Stick” by Chip and Dan Heath.   While I understood the need to connect emotionally to a consumer, the need for ads to break through, the single most persuasive idea, etc. I was intrigued by the deep connection marketing has with psychology.  Duh, right?  Since marketing is all about the communication from brands to the end consumer.  Truly understanding and connecting the psychological connection to marketing can only make you a stronger marketer.

This book walks through some great concepts that will transform the way you communicate. At the foundation is the concept “make it simple”.  Find the core idea and stick to it.  In my training, we called this the single most persuasive idea.

“Compact ideas are sticky but compact ideas alone aren’t valuable.  Only ideas with profound compactness are valuable”.  To make it profound you have to put a lot of meaning into a little bit of messaging.  If simple ideas are staged and layered correctly, they can be very complex.   

Have you ever heard of schema?  It is a collection of generic properties of a concept or category.  They consist of a lot of pre-recorded info stored in our memories and help us connect meaning quickly.

Using schema improves the comprehension and memory.  Here is an example...ever heard of a pomelo?  It is basically a super sized grapefruit with a very thick and soft rind.  This explanation pulls up an image you can relate to (a grapefruit) then you can visualize the differences outlined in the description (super sized, etc.)

Good marketing communication should do the same to make complex ideas simple.  Teachers use schema a lot to communicate the lesson in a manner that the students can relate to.   Analogies can become platforms for novel thinking. 

Another interesting psychological concept is “good metaphors are generative”.  They generate new perceptions, explanations, and inventions.  For example, Disney employees are called “cast members”.  They don’t interview, they “audition”.  When they are on the grounds of the park, they are “on stage”.  The uniforms are called “costumes”.   On the other side, Subway has sandwich artists.  By definition, artists are free thinkers with individual expression.  This is definitely not how Subway wants their line employees to act.  Generative metaphors substitute something easy to think about for something difficult. 

As marketers, we often use the team “breaking through”.   The most basic ways to get some ones attention is to break a pattern.  Humans adapt incredibly quickly to consistent patterns.  Our brains are keenly aware of change (think about car alarms – they go through a series of noises). 

Schemas help us predict what will happen and how we should make decisions.  When an ad violates our schema our guessing machine fails, which causes us to be surprised.  Surprise jolts us to attention. 

Emotions help us deal with critical situations.  Anger prepares us to fight, fear prepares us to flee.  A secondary effect of being angry is that we become more certain we are right (think of a fight with your partner).   Emotions have a biological purpose. 

Think about the body motions of being surprised.  Your eyes widen to see more, your mouth and jaw drops and you become speechless so you are quite and motionless so you don’t miss anything.  Things halt and attention is focused involuntarily so you can think. 

In marketing, we use surprise to reinforce the simple message.  The twist should make sense to the viewer after they think about it but it is not something they see coming.  If you want an idea to be sticky, you have to break someone’s guessing machine and then fix it. 

In summary, the process includes:

·         Identify the central message you need to communication – find the core. 

·         Figure out what is counter intuitive about the message.  What are the unexpected implications of your core message?  Why isn’t it already naturally happening?

·         Communicate your message in a way that breaks your audience’s guessing machine

·         Then once the guessing machine has failed, help them refine the machine.

Here is an example of a sticky ad:

Enclave Buckle-up Ad - YouTube

All in all, great book and a must read for all marketers and copy writers.

Scot Safon Speaks at AMA Atlanta Collegiate Conference

As a member of the AMA (American Marketing Association) Atlanta Collegiate Committee, I was able to help organize the collegiate conference held at the Biltmore last Friday.  The conference agenda was designed to inspire and help steward college students who are about to enter into the business world. 

While I was part of the group that developed the agenda, I wasn't truley aware who Scot Safon was or what he was going to speak about.  I had heard "the name" in networking circles and heard the buzz from his appearance at the AMA Atlanta luncheon a few months ago. If you don't know who he is, Scot is currently the head hancho at Headline News.  His career timeline starts in an ad agency, eventually lands him at TNT developing movie posters (interestingly enough a dream of his), then onto lead CNN and HLN. 

For an hour I listened to Scot walk us all through his amazing career and his message was extremely simple...."be enthusiastic about what you are doing!!!" Simple....but difficult, I thought.  Some other quotes to share from the presentation; "persuasive writing versus creative writing", "remain a student throughout your career", "don't ever move for a title", "be intentional". 

Right then I vowed to remain a student and share some of the learning with others...hence, the blog.  Now, as I reflect and think about the presentation and his message, I ask how can I incorporate the learning into my own life?  Being true to myself and loving what I do, is a start.....