ChaosScenario

Earning The Trust of Strangers

Even if you've done all the research that can be done on a subject, you may have difficulties selling your idea to skeptics. Chip and Dan Heath, authors of Made to Stick, correctly note that companies establish credibility by appealing to some authority. Several problems lie in this. First, not everyone companies pick to pitch a product is actually an authority.

"I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV."

Second, the methods they use to establish credibility can be misleading. It doesn't have to be true for people to believe it, and therein lies the "dark art" of earning the trust of strangers. The methods taught in the book could easily be used by scoundrels.

Credibility
Many urban legends have apparent authority because of the alleged credible source. How many emails have you received reporting on some virus that was verified by "a friend of a friend," who happens to work at Microsoft? Remember that one that promised Bill Gates would personally pay you a million dollars for testing out his email tracking program?

Of course it wasn't true, but people believed it, because it had the color of credibility. As a result of emails like this, your email box got stuffed beyond capacity with junk that wasn't quite spam, since it came from a friend, but with clutter that made you afraid to go to bars and drive alone on country roads. You even created multiple email addresses - one for business, and at least one other for this type of notice.

It's true that genuine experts can add a punch to your idea, but lacking celebrities or experts to endorse your idea, what are the methods to establish credibility, and how do we use this technique for good, not evil?

Antiauthorities
An antiauthority is one who can bring emotional resonance and detail to an idea, and they can be more effective spokespeople than celebrities or experts. If you're trying to convince people not to smoke, it's more effective to use as your spokesperson a young person who is dying of lung cancer than a celebrity like, say, Keanu Reeves -- or worse, George Burns (who smoked cigars until he died at 100 years old).

Details
Another interesting finding that the brothers Heath reported on is how irrelevant details can make an idea more convincing, but when confronted with a challenge of presenting an idea to skeptics, our details should be both truthful and more meaningful.

Human Scale
Large numbers are difficult for humans to digest. The scaling process that we might use to make them more concrete also makes them more credible. 

Above all, I would caution advertisers to never intentionally mislead. Make sure whatever it is you are pitching is objectively true or at least justifiable before making the idea seem more credible than it is. Leave the illusions to the magicians. Being dishonest just hurts the credibility of everyone else. - Cam Beck

Image courtesy of The Rocketeer

Beating television at its own game

So a lot of smart people, including Joesph Jaffe have commented quite a bit about re-purposing 30-second spots online. Suffice it to say it's not something they suggest doing.

Maybe not. Take a look at this research from  Millard/Brown:

      







"Web spots increased the viewer attention rate by 53%, awareness by 52%, consideration by 27% and favorability by 26%. Prompted recall of brand advertising was four times higher for Web viewers." 

So put all your 30-second spots online? Well maybe, but I think the results are really a result of how people use the different media types. As David Hallerman puts it,

"The Internet is a lean-forward medium, with an actively engaged audience ready to click and type and move around quickly, while television is the proverbial lean-back medium, with the typified image of couch potatoes letting sounds and images wash over them."

This to me means that, although putting your TV ads online may work, it's not the using the medium to its full capability. Good agencies will recognize the best way to integrate the two and will take that into consideration when the 30-second spot is created. They'll extend the campaign by allow interaction, creating additional content or creating communities. Know of some good examples? I think they're few and far between but let's hear 'em. - Paul Herring

Hit Your Audience with a Ton of Bricks

Quick! What's the definition of "justice?"

Fine. Take your time, then.

Now, what was the jury's verdict in the O.J. Simpson criminal trial?

Chances are, it was much easier for you to answer the second question than the first. That's because it requires different centers of your brain to process abstractions and to recall things that involved your senses.

They both deal with memory, but to paraphrase the way the authors of Made to Stick describe it,  remembering the definition of justice, unless you're a lawyer or judge, perhaps, is like trying to grasp a slippery fish, while remembering the jury's verdict in the O.J. Simpson criminal trial, to most people, is like the loops and hooks of Velcro. Your brain has the loops, and the event has the hooks.

Concreteness
Concreteness is a particularly useful principle for strategists, experience designers, or anyone charged with developing and presenting abstract information to a client, if they expect the client to remember the information later. Statistics are abstract, but necessary. How can you make your presentation of the statistics memorable and convincing?

When something can be touched, seen, tasted, or smelled, it meets the criteria for being concrete. "The size of a basketball to the size of a tennis ball" is concrete. The difference in sizes between Earth and its moon is not. A diameter of approximately 8,000 miles to a diameter of approximately 2,000 miles is not, either. At least, not without the previous comparison.

Concreteness is the principle that motivates breaking down abstractions to more tangible, relevant forms, which are typically easier to digest. Do it correctly on the front end, when you're presenting strategy for a campaign or website, and you're less likely to encounter objections about the principles on which the campaign or site are built when the time comes to present the final mechanicals, video, audio, and/or site creative. - Cam Beck

Get Their Attention and Keep It

Everyone reading this blog has likely seen and been bored by a PowerPoint presentation. In fact, if you're like me, you've also been on the giving end of one of those presentations, because that's what you were asked to do. People able to hold the audience's attention are often credited with charisma, and this might be true, but can this skill be learned? How do you keep their interest?

Having spent the hours, days, weeks, or a lifetime of research filling fifteen to thirty minutes, you developed what the authors of Made to Stick call The Curse of Knowledge. You know how to communicate the punch line, but you don't know how to develop the interest that led you to it. Consequently, the presentation comes off as dry and boring.

Unexpectedness
Adding an element of surprise can be problematic, because in doing so, you must reinforce the essence of the subject you developed. Shocking people for the sake of shocking them, as I mentioned in an earlier post, is just a gimmick.

A good example of surprise that the authors use is Jared of Subway. Nobody expected anyone to go from 425 lbs to 180 lbs by eating fast food. So completely did Jared's story obliterate people's perception of the effective ways to lose weight that the process of finding and broadcasting it had to overcome great bureaucratic and legal hurdles to get the needed permission to use that story in the company's advertising (More on that later).

Lacking the element of surprise, you can still generate interest by implicitly pointing out gaps in the knowledge of your audience. The interest isn't built in the punch line, but in how the mystery unfolds. You know something they want to know. Each question leads to another question, and as you ask the question, it makes the audience realize that they, too, want to hear what you have to say about the answer.

That said, it must be a question that has no clear answer, or one that suggests the audience's longstanding beliefs, or schema, will be changed once the answer is revealed. Asking the audience what the square root of pi is will not interest or engage them. Suggesting the audience's understanding about, say, global warming is wrong based on new evidence, might.

Even those lacking in charisma are capable of learning how to make a presentation (or advertising) interesting. The challenge is in getting the audience to think about and become engaged with the message. Revealing the unexpected at key intervals will help you do just that.

Get a Free Copy of Made to Stick
So much do I believe you need to read this book, that I am offering two free copies to members of our audience. There are two ways to earn one. I wanted the way to win be fair and objective, but relatively easy, so I decided against a complicated formula relying on a judge's decision. Here's how you do it.

1. Be the first to comment on this post. Be sure to put your email address in the correct field, as I'll need it to get your correct address so that I can send it via Amazon.
2. Find a specific post. Who was the first blogger I ever highlighted from this blog? Find the post, and comment on the post I referenced. Check back here and let us all know when that it's done. The first person to do this gets a free copy.

Even if you've already read the book and want to send a copy to someone you know, go ahead and participate, and I will send it to that person. - Cam Beck

Boil It Down to Just One Thing

I'm reading an excellent book called Made to Stick. The authors claim they consider it a companion piece to The Tipping Point, but my suggestion is this: If you haven't read either and only have time to read one, read Made to Stick. Malcom Gladwell is a good writer, but the brothers Heath are excellent teachers. And they want to teach you the same tools they use constantly throughout their book.

Simplicity
The first quality of a sticky message, according to the authors, is simplicity. One example they used is the gruff wisdom of Curly (Jack Palance) from City Slickers, who shared the secret to a happy life with city-dweller Mitch (Billy Crystal). Curly held up a single finger and told his clueless charge to find one thing that he's passionate about -- it doesn't matter what it is -- and be about that one thing. Once Mitch did that, Curly said, it didn't matter what else went on around him. He could tune it out.

In truth, it does matter what that one thing is, but the point is clear: Find what you love, and dedicate yourself to it! Be passionate about it! And don't be afraid that everyone is looking.

In marketing, simplicity just means you've got to boil the central message down to its essence. Discard the happy talk and get to the point. The more your message is about, the less it will be understood.

This is the first part in what will be a 6-part review of Made to Stick. - Cam Beck

Mastercard's golf legend telethon

I love the different ways that people are using video online, especially when it's based on creating new type of experiences. Rather than blubbering on and on, check out the new Mastercard site where you can chat with a golf legend.

What I like about this site is the way that they've integrated calling in. For those of you who haven't tried it yet, you can call in and interact with different golf pros. Sure it's slow and a little clunky but it's the first time I've ever seen this done, and it's done pretty well. The script is well written and it's entertaining even for those who aren't golfers. -  Paul Herring

Every Time a Blogger Twitters, An Angel Gets Its Wings

A lot of people I admire and respect have leaped onto Twitter like a pack of ravenous wolves. I'm cool with that. I've been following their conversations from their blogs, and I find it a nice way to keep in contact with them even if I won't join in the conversation. Is that eavesdropping? They did post it on their websites for a reason, right? Plus, I remember when people thought I was a geek because I jumped on AOL chatrooms and pontificated about the many irreverent ways to use the word "spam" in a sentence.

Okay, maybe I am a geek. And I'm a bigger one than any of them, except for maybe the great Haw, knows. That's why I'm in no position to judge. But it's also why I can't get on Twitter. Once you twit, it's gone. There's no going back to edit your spelling, correcting errors in logic. Or even build logic in statements limited to 160 characters. Qualifying statements can be a real hindrance. So all I'd really be able to do is tell a bunch of people I admire and respect what I'm doing at this particular moment.

My gut tells me that, unless the wireless service providers start giving it for free, the charges for messaging over SMS will put the kibosh on any magnificent growth of the service, and some of that has already been reported. I will definitely be a late adopter of this service, if I do decide to adopt it at all. My moment-to-moment comings and goings aren't that interesting, and my throwaway witticisms aren't so clever that the people I mentioned before would care to read them much.

If my friends can find some value in it, then it is valuable to them. Knowing me, I'd use my first Twitter to put my foot in my mouth, and the following 99 apologizing and qualifying the statement. That's frankly not a good use of my time. :) -  Cam Beck

King of the Whacks

Yesterday I received my very own Ball of Whacks, which is the brainchild of the brilliant Roger von Oech (blog). I'm looking forward to trying it out.

I'll write a more thorough review once I've had a chance to play around with it some more, but my first impression is very positive. It is put together very well. On another note, I also learned a new term. "Rhombic Triacontahedron."

I'm kidding, of course. I didn't learn it, and I doubt I ever will. I'd have to look it up every darn time. "Ball of Whacks" is much stickier. - Cam Beck

The Secret to Making Them Smile

These days it seems advertisers feel like they must shock the audience in order make an impact. The biggest fear seems to be that no one will remember the ad they poured weeks of their lives into, and indeed, at least one agency was fired for failing to meet this criteria. This fear has become more pronounced as advertisers learned that people generally don't like watching 30-second spots that much anymore. The audience will even skip them, if they can, through DVRs or some other means, and if they can't skip them, they'll tune them out by channel surfing or by ignoring them.

The problem with the shock-first approach is that it gets harder and harder to shock people through advertising, so the bar keeps getting raised, putting agencies and their clients at risk of offending people, as happened with the recent flack over the GM robot-"suicide" ads. I think this approach is generally (but not absolutely) unnecessary. Advertisers should concern themselves less with shocking people with 30-second spots and more with simply delighting them with effective service. 

I came to this realization when I came home from work a couple of weeks ago. My daughter, Faith, was sitting in a bouncy chair, and I immediately attempted to make her smile. To my surprise and delight, she did so right away, but at this point, though I was leaning that way, I wasn't absolutely convinced her expression was actually an emotion instead of gas.

Therefore, I tried to duplicate the feat by putting on the same performance I gave her before, but didn't impress her. By this time, I was desperate to get a smile out of her. My wife had already seen her smile, but she noted that by the evening, Faith was already exhausted and grumpy, so I always had to miss it.

One of the great things about babies is that they are a blank slate. There will be the first time she ever hears each joke, and, in this case, there was a first time she ever was subjected to a game of "peek-a-boo." Stunned by the response I got (That old trick worked?), I did it again and again. It didn't get old! I jumped up and down like an CareerBuilder monkey until I calmed down enough to grab the camera and take this shot.

I freely admit that there will be a time when peek-a-boo becomes an ineffective tool. But it's important to realize the reason why it continues to be effective now. Faith doesn't enjoy it because it's inherently funny (or surprising), but because it demonstrates I can pay attention to her in a manner that she understands and craves.

Similarly, your customers and potential customers will also appreciate your paying attention to their needs. Don't worry so much about shocking them. Just engage with them in a way they understand and want. - Cam Beck

One more thing: I would be remiss not to use this space to thank Lewis, CK and David Reich, all of whom helped inspire this post. It's been a crazy week... I apologize for forgetting to give credit on my first pass.

The Y.O.D.A. Project

I've been I don't know what Y.O.D.A. stands for, but this blog, created and maintained by my friend,  colleague, and recently re-initiated father, Jason Sutterfield, is worth checking out.

It's part marketing, part tech, part personal, but 100% genuine. - Cam Beck