The psychological principle that blogger use and what marketers can learn from it

In 1971, Professor Dennis Regan started a small scale experiment. He was curious if people would be more willing to follow a request from a person who previously gave them a gift.

During the experiment, Regan’s assistant would leave the room and in half the cases return with a free can of coke saying the experimenter was happy to give them a drink. After the experiment, the assistant would ask his fellow participant to help him win a prize by buying raffle tickets from him. (Regan, 1971)

The result was astonishing: the participants who received a free coke bought twice as many tickets than the one who did not get a coke.

The experiment demonstrated the power of a psychological principle called reciprocity. People feel obliged to return favours which also forms the base of the saying ‘You have to give to receive’. Further, the returned favour also often outweighs the original gesture (Learnvest, 2011), making it a profitable business tactic.

Reciprocity in Blogging

Reciprocity is one of the principles that make content marketing and therefore blogging so powerful. Bloggers give valuable content to their audiences for free thereby making people more inclined to open their wallets afterwards to return the favour.

One popular type of content that many bloggers nowadays use to market their products are free webinars. These are hour long information-packed presentations, accompanied with a short Q&Y session and a sales pitch at the end.

The perceived value of webinars is high due to the length, the fact that it is live and that there is a sense of community when people interact with each other and the blogger on the webinar chat. Webinars work because they make use of the power of reciprocity: offering a favour in the form of free information which makes people even more likely to purchase afterwards.

Alex Beadon, a blogger i’ve been following, also launched her new online course with a free webinar. She gave away parts of the course content which is valuable on it own but leave people slightly hungry to also incentivise them to join her course. In my experience, I have bought from webinars before – despite the fact that I firmly decided I would not do it. This has demonstrated the power of webinars to me. This is something that many other types of businesses can benefit from.

Reciprocity, amongst other psychological principles, play a huge part in blogger successes. Whereas webinars are one of the newer tools available for marketing, reciprocity has been around since the beginning of mankind. Marketing tools and tactics will inevitable change in the future, however the nature of humans is not likely to change. This makes psychological principles such as reciprocity – which drive human behaviour – highly relevant and valuable for future marketers

Marketers who want to succeed in today’s ever-changing competitive environment, therefore need to understand not only the strategies and tactics, but most importantly the psychological principles behind them. By understanding the underlying psychology of why a particular marketing strategy works, marketers are able to reassemble them and create new ones that will work and get people’s attention.

Do you feel like we are  learning enough about the psychology of marketing? Do you feel it’s relevant to your future?

References

LearnVest, (2011). Say No to That Free Sample! The Rule of Reciprocity. [online] Available at: http://www.learnvest.com/knowledge-center/put-back-that-free-sample-the-rule-of-reciprocity/ [Accessed 3 Nov. 2014].

Regan, D. (1971). Effects of a Favor and Liking on Compliance. [online] Communicationcache. Available at: http://www.communicationcache.com/uploads/1/0/8/8/10887248/effects_of_a_favor_and_liking_on_compliance.pdf [Accessed 7 Nov. 2014]

Fighting back against consumption: what newly emerging movements mean for marketers

In 2011, Tammy and her husband decided to go all in with their downsizing adventure. After having moved to a one-bedroom flat, it was time to take it one step further by moving into their tiny house.

Living in their tiny house meant a simpler, less materialistic lifestyle. It allowed them to save money, work less and thus have more time for each other, for their health and ultimately for happiness. (Rowdy Kitten, n.a.)

Today, the idea of a good life seems to be equal to possessing and consuming with an emphasis on quantity. The more the better, with more consumption supposed to create more happiness. Yet, unhappiness is rising amongst citizens, alongside with mental illnesses.

This lifestyle comes at a great social, environmental and ethical expense. It requires us to work harder and longer in order to support and finance this way of life. Is requires high levels of production – often unethical and unsustainable – using natural resources (Shah, 2005).

The realisation that consumption is not the answer to happiness has lead to new movements. From anti-consumption and downsizing to minimalism and slow living – they all emphasise a “less-is-more” approach to life. (Create the good life, n.a.)

As in the case of Tammy and her tiny house, more and more people choose “voluntary simplicity” as a lifestyle. As Kate Soper desired, they are seeking an alternative form of hedonism where pleasure is gained outside of the market as oppose to through market consumption. (Simplicity Collection 2011). For me, this means enjoying nature instead of going shopping for example.

As the movements become more mainstream, marketisation begins, offering new business opportunities. New types of consumers emerge such as the “the ethical consumer, the green consumer and the activist consumer” (Sands 2012) that still have consumption-based needs that need to be fulfilled.

A leading example of a company that successfully targets these newer types of consumer is Patagonia, a US outdoor clothing company.

The company proposes that businesses should produce fewer goods in higher quality that are only brought by consumers when they require it (The Cleanestline, n.a). With their Common Thread Initiative, they are explicitly addressing consumption issues by saying:

New types of advertisements such as Patagonia’s “Don’t buy this Jacket” campaign successfully gained the attention of consumption conscious consumers.

Making these changes allows Patagonia to satisfy the demands of the emerged consumer types who take a different approach to consumption.

Our role as marketers may be in leading organisations into this change: working towards a more sustainable, ethical way of doing business, where products are built to last. It may be that we choose to market conscious consumption instead of the highly consumerist lifestyle of today.

Do you think marketing conscious consumption is the way to go?

References

Create the good life, (n.d). Slow Living. [online] Available at: http://www.create-the-good-life.com/slow_living.html%5BAccessed 12 Nov. 2014].

Rowdy Kitten, (2009). Our Downsizing Story. [online] go small, think big & be happy. Available at: http://www.rowdykittens.com/about/our-downsizing-story/ [Accessed 9 Nov. 2014].

Shah, A. (2005). Effects of Consumerism — Global Issues. [online] Globalissues.org. Available at: http://www.globalissues.org/article/238/effects-of-consumerism [Accessed 10 Nov. 2014].

The Cleanest Line, (n.d.). Don’t Buy This Jacket, Black Friday and the New York Times. [online] Available at: http://www.thecleanestline.com/2011/11/dont-buy-this-jacket-black-friday-and-the-new-york-times.html [Accessed 12 Nov. 2014].

Marketers as myth makers & the ethical issue of their inadequacy approach

I spent much of my youth drawing at my desk, listening to audio books like the ‘???’, a series about three young boys playing detectives to help make the world a better place.

These stories carried important messages that I transported into my current life. Messages like “in the end, the good wins over evil” or “you are never too young to make a difference” shone through every passage of the story.

Since the beginning of mankind stories have been used to show people how the world works and guide them through what’s right and wrong. Stories, often in form of myths, connected people and formed unifying beliefs. (Sachs, 2013)

How marketers became myth makers

Looking at the Bible, the story of Buddha or ancient myths such as the adventurous story of Odyssey and you can see how powerful stories can be. It therefore comes at no surprise, that savvy marketers started discovering and employing storytelling for economic gain.

In the process, marketers adopted an approach to storytelling where the brand acts as the hero who rescues the consumer with a commercial solution (Sachs, 2013a). This, however, implies that the consumer is the weak character of the story who needs help. He becomes the victim that is lacking something and doesn’t fit in. This storytelling approach is based on inadequacy and fear and has shaped the advertising world since its emergence. (Sachs, 2013a)

Using fear and failing-based stories for commercial purposes, also known as “inadequacy marketing”, has proven to be an effective approach to convert prospects into buyers. However, it raises ethical issues as the underlying message is that the consumer, hence you and me, and our lives are not good enough.

I personally, find this shocking. Business should create wellbeing and not make people feel bad before doing so.

Looking at the rise of body-image related issues shows what damage this marketing approach causes. Brands such as Victoria Secret have instilled inside us the image of ‘the perfect body’ that hardly any woman – or man – can live up to, which contributes to the rise of eating disorders.

A good example is the advert below that carries a toxic message:

You are not good enough unless you look like these girls!

Credit: Victoria Secret 

While marketing is designed to create demand, I don’t think it should come at the cost of making consumers feel inadequate.

We, as the new generation of marketers, have a social responsibility to fulfil. This requires a different, more ethical approach to marketing: instead of making consumers feel inadequate, we need to learn to empower them.

Do you feel inadequacy marketing will die out in the near future? Is empowerment marketing a step in the right direction?

References

Sachs, J. (2013a). Jonah Sachs: ‘The story of inadequacy marketing is over’ (Wired UK). [online] Wired UK. Available at: http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2013/04/ideas-bank/the-story-of-inadequacy-marketing-is-over [Accessed 22 Oct. 2014]

Sachs, J. (2013b). Watch “Winning the Story Wars: Jonah Sachs at TEDxRainier” Video at TEDxTalks. [online] Tedx talks. Available at: http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/Winning-the-Story-Wars-Jonah–2 [Accessed 22 Oct. 2014]

Do Customers Care about Brands?

At one of the last meetups I attended, I got approached by one of the attendees with an idea:

I want to create a subscription based blog where I’ll talk about my life in New York. What do you think?

I replied: “What’s in it for the reader? What are they paying for?”

“Well they want to hear about my life, what I am up to, don’t they?, he said.

This got me thinking. Do they really care? Care enough to not only pay attention, but pay for a subscription too?

The Importance of Brands

Marketers often think people care about their brands. However, it has become clear that only the minority of brands are cared about by their customers. Brand, for example of “commodity type products” are far less relevant for consumers (PPAI 2005) than brands within technological or automotive sector. Customers don’t care about brands, they care only about themselves and what the brand can do for them. (Seth Godin 2007, p. 69)

Reflecting over my personal motifs for following certain bloggers, I came to realise that I follow them purely to get something out of it myself. Let that be entertainment, inspiration or education. If I can’t gain any of the above from a blog, I direct my attention and time elsewhere.

The Shift in Getting Attention

Traditional advertising was based on interrupting consumers thereby buying their attention.
Today, attention can’t be bought as easily anymore – especially not online. (Seth Godin 2013)

Globalisation led to an increasingly competitive market with hundreds of companies competing against the attention of consumers. This led us to enter a new era, the Attention age, where “attention has become the greatest commodity” (Endre 2014)

Attention has to be earned

Davenport and Beck describe attention as a “focused mental engagement on a particular item or information”.(Davenport & Beck 2013, p.20)  As attention and action are causally related, it becomes clear how important consumer’s attention is for sales. (Davenport & Beck 2002, p. 21)

However, with too many choices,  the vast majority of consumers are becoming increasingly ignorant to brand’s scream for attention. (Seth Godin 2003) Expecting consumer’s attention without having earned it is an attribution error many companies face. Creating “average products for average people” doesn’t do the trick anymore. (Seth Godin 2007,p. xi)

To have a brand that consumers actually care about, companies have to earn their attention. This need to be done by serving customers in the way they desire and by becoming remarkable.

References

Davenport, T. and Beck, J. (2002). The attention economy. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School.

Endré, A. (2009). Step Aside Information Age, the Attention Age is Here. [online] Available at: http://aaronendre.com/2009/10/26/step-aside-information-age-the-attention-age-is-here/ [Accessed 20 Oct. 2014]

Godin, S. (2003). How to get your ideas to spread. [online] Ted.com. Available at: http://www.ted.com/talks/seth_godin_on_sliced_bread?language=en [Accessed 22 Oct. 2014].

Godin, S. (2007). Meatball sundae. New York: Portfolio.

Godin, S. (2013). Seth’s Blog: The attention paradox. [online] Available at: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2013/01/the-attentionaction-paradox.html [Accessed 19 Oct. 2014].