The C Words
11.06.2009
As a consumer / designer / advertiser I try to articulate what makes me pull the trigger on a new purchase. I don't buy the cheapest or the most expensive ... so as a consumer buying in the middle of the market offerings, how do I decide?
That sorta question crosses the desks of an entire industry of marketers every day. Making a product or service more appealing than its counterparts is a strange art.
I could spill my personal discoveries about what sells to me ... but I would rather talk about what doesn't. I've refined my thoughts to three simple words that don't sell (to me).... Chance, Collect, & Combined.
'A Chance to win' ... an old marketing favorite. Incentive to win something makes a lot of people buy a lot of garbage they wouldn't otherwise. These sorta things used to be instant. Open a 'specially marked' (designed) bottle of coke and you might win something instantly. These days you get a code and a web address, you log-on and then feed the marketing machine all your personal info. And then get the bad news. 'Please try again' ... no thanks.
'Collect them all' ... nothing drives repeat business like getting people to 'collect'. When did collecting become part of our culture? Buying things just to get closer to a complete collection baffles me. Marketers know it sparks a desire in some people that can make the most useless of items highly desirable (thus raising their perceived value). And the bigger the gap between actual value and perceived value ... the richer the retailer becomes.
'Combined Experience' ... seems to be a buzz phrase that means absolutely nothing to me. Why do local marketers think that if you add up the years of experience on the job .. it will affect a purchase decision? How would that scale nationally? Wal-Mart has 4,568 years of experience in retail? Tell me more about what you've done in those years. 'Combine' your experience with a good marketing provider and shape a message with substance. That would sell to me.
These thoughts remind me of a book that floated around the agency (back then) called 'Words That Sell' ... I would imagine there are dozens more.
