The Subtle Art of Self Persuasion

There was a couple in the early stages of relationship when, one turned to the other and exclaimed, “You’re perfect.” One would assume that statement would be met with some level of positivity. On the contrary, the recipient felt something just short of revulsion.

Character flaws notwithstanding, when questioned as to the source of this negative emotion the reply was in some respects poignant. The reasoning went that being in the very preliminary stages of attraction the “couple” still knew very little about one another. As such, the blank spaces were filled with the imagination of what could be. In attributing perfection to the relationship at such an early stage, in reality what the person was actually doing was fulfilling their want of a perfect relationship by applying it to the situation.

Essentially the “You are perfect” had nothing to do about the declaree and everything to do with the declarer. It was their imagination, fueled by the desire for a perfect relationship, that led one person to convince themselves that the other was somehow “perfect”.

This ability to convince ourselves of the things we want to be true is a common occurrence that happens beyond the scope of relationships. As evidence, take this recent Adweek article where an ordinary man pretends to be a celebrity to the effect that people wind up treating him like one.  

Talking To Ourselves
Peter Wason was a cognitive psychologist who coined the term “confirmation bias”, which describes people’s tendency to favor information that validates their preconceptions, hypotheses and personal beliefs regardless of the information’s basis in truth.

Mr. Wason conducted an experiment where he presented subjects with a number sequence: 2,4,6. The subjects were told that the sequence was created by a rule that they were to uncover by generating their own three-number sequences. After each attempt the subjects were told if their sequence met the rule, and they could generate as many sequences as needed until they were confident of the rule.

The rule was “any three numbers in increasing order”. Despite the rule’s simplicity only about 25% of the subjects figured it out because most, upon selecting a hypothesis, only looked for evidence to validate that hypothesis while eschewing any attempts to refute it.

Once told they were wrong, the subjects were allowed to try again. However, when suggested to use a different approach, most continued to only look at ways that supported their hypothesis.  Mr. Wason concluded that people have a confirmation bias; they are prejudiced to test a hypothesis by working to confirm it instead of working to falsify it.

Put another way, once people have a belief they have a tendency to perceive things in ways that support their belief at the expense of any evidence to the contrary. A relationship is perceived as perfect because it is imaged to be that way, and only evidence that supports that belief is accepted.

Marketers are regular victims of confirmation bias:

We fall in love with our ideas and create reasons why they work while ignoring why they don’t.
We chase trends while ignoring the lack of data supporting their value.
We do what we have always done while ignoring the metrics around diminishing returns.
We create slogans of perceived grandeur while ignoring their emptiness of meaning.
We blame our agencies or clients for bad work while ignoring our own role in the creation.
We consistently talk to ourselves while ignoring our consumers.

The story didn’t end well for the “couple”, as the imperfections of the person inevitably became apparent, disappointment ensued, and that person wound up getting dumped. Don’t talk yourself into believing what you are saying. Actively find the holes in the story and fill them with texture or press delete and start again.

Be aware of your confirmation bias, because it ultimately leads to “a dump”.

The Precautionary Principle of Marketing

In 1999 there was a meeting of prestigious environmentalists and academics promoting a theory of thought around environmental policymaking called “The Precautionary Principle”. In its strictest sense, and broken down to its most basic tenet, the principle states that “ultimate precaution should trump all other considerations in future environmental and technological policy making”. Put more succinctly, the principal demands that if an action might cause harm, then inaction is preferable.

It is not hard to see how rigid enactment of this principle would lead to a culture of aversion and stagnation, where the mere potential of a negative would lead to positives unrealized. Where risks become something to be avoided instead of opportunities to be seized.

Medication that could cure a terminal illness would be eschewed due to possible side effects.
New technologies would be forsaken for fear of malfunction.
Cars wouldn’t have been invented for the risk of a crash.
Surgical procedures wouldn’t exist for risk of damage to the patient.
Fire wouldn’t have been discovered for risk of burning down the house.

The point is, by looking to remove any possibility of harm you create an environment where gain is snuffed out, resulting in net greater harm than that which you were attempting to prevent.

There is another, more simple phrase to describe this dynamic; it is called being “penny smart and dollar foolish”, and it is a prevalent force within the corporate world. It permeates an organization and trickles down to the individual to create a culture of fear that stifles innovation.

Fear of disrupting the status quo, so you do what has always been done regardless of the result.
Fear of alienating with your message, so you make it palatable to all and relevant to none.
Fear of standing by your beliefs, so you acquiesce to management's requests even if you disagree.
Fear of challenging the competition, so you play it safe even if there is potential gain in making direct claims against them.
Fear of transparency, so you dance around an issue instead of getting directly to its core.
Fear of being ill perceived, so you remain silent instead of adding to the dialogue.
Fear of losing your job...fear of being wrong...fear of failure...fear of being different...  

At a certain point the fear of taking risks becomes riskier than the risks themselves.

So don’t fear failure. Fear the ordinary, commonplace and unimaginative. Fear the mediocre, unmemorable and uneventful. Let those fears haunt and drive you to be disruptive and impactful. To be meaningful and magical.

Because as Harvey Weinstein once said at a conference I attended, “The only thing middle of the road gets you is hit by a car.”

Short List to Successful Client/Agency Relationships

The Client/Agency relationship is an integral part to developing strong marketing. At its best the relationship is a true partnership built on mutual respect. At its worst it is frustrating and even toxic.

Having worked from both the client and agency perspective, and having managed both wonderful and challenging agencies and clients alike, here is my short list of advice on how to develop a true partnership with your agency/client partners.

To The Agencies

1. Do What Is Right, Not Necessarily What Is Asked

Detailed and flawless execution is the cost of entry. It is easy to find an agency that follows orders, but the agency who has a point of view and who isn’t afraid to challenge directions that don’t make sense is the one I want to work with. I may not always agree, but as long as your reasoning is solid I will respect and value you for your opinion.

2. I Want To Speak To The People Who Are Actually Doing The Work

I don’t know where the absurd notion came from that the creative staff can’t attend a meeting because they need protection from the criticism or differing points of view involved in strategic dialogue. If your only role is to record my feedback and water it down so that it is more easily digested by the people who are really doing the thinking then you are as useful as the mosquito. It is imperative that the people whose thought went into whatever is being discussed actually be at the discussion, not only to get their point of view per point 1 above, but also to troubleshoot any challenges together.

3. Leave Your Puns At The Office

Another thing that I have no tolerance for is a glossy presentation laced with pithy copy and clever puns but completely lacking in strategic thought. Window dressing is easily seen through and doesn’t make you look clever. I don’t want used car salesmen, I want strategic marketers.

4. Take Initiative

If there is a bigger need than what I am specifically asking you to do then solve for it. If you do a good job you will get more business than what was originally in the offering. I once worked with a PR agency that was asked to develop a basic tactical outreach plan. Instead they provided a comprehensive PR strategy because they saw a need for one, and in doing so they got 3X the budget to execute than was originally planned.

To The Clients

1. Don’t Be An A-Hole

This is pretty straight forward, and you assume it would be obvious, harkening back to the golden rule circa kindergarten, yet there are horror stories of hellish clients circling around almost every agency. Look, I am sorry if you weren’t allowed to eat chocolate as a kid and had to take an ugly date to the prom, but that doesn’t mean you have the right, now that you are in a position of faux authority, to exorcise those demons by treating your agency partners like crap. There is a reason why you get a new account lead every six months, it’s because your agency hates you and spends the first half of every internal meeting making fun of you. If you want good work out of your agency then treat them respectfully and they will more likely than not bend over backwards for you.

2. Be Hard But Be Fair

Push your agencies, demand inspired thinking and don’t settle if you aren’t getting what you want, but at the same time be fair and reasonable in your approach. If you are only allowing two days to develop a creative strategy then you have no right to expect the next Old Spice campaign. If you continually beat up your agency about price without compromise on the deliverable then you shouldn’t expect the top people on your business. And if you don’t put any thought, time or effort into the initial brand strategy and creative brief how can you expect your agency to be inspired to do great work?

3. Be Transparent & Inclusive

The more informed your agency is about your business and the more insight they have into why and how the decisions are made the more effective they will be. Don’t beat around the bush, get to the heart of an issue even if it is a difficult one. Your agency will appreciate it, will be better informed to make smart decisions about your business and will have clearer direction to do it with. Get them invested in your business and they will invest in your business.

4. Remove Obstacles

In my mind one of the most important things a client can do for an agency is quickly identify and remove any obstacle in the way of their progress, and often this starts with the client themselves. If you are not getting the work you want out of your agency look internally before you point the finger at them. Is your strategy too broad or unclear so that it is preventing the development of a distinct point of view in your marketing ideas? Are you being lead by tactics before strategy, which is causing things to get forced fit and thus is impairing the expansion of an idea? Do you have “God Syndrome”, and thus are creating a “follow orders only” dynamic. There are many things that can cause work to get stuck in the mud and it is your job to identify and solve for them, and that doesn’t always mean getting a new agency.

Just like any relationship, Client/Agency relationships take work and require communication, respect and mutual understanding, even if you don’t always agree, in order to prosper. This isn’t a comprehensive list, but it should lay a good foundation to build upon.

Why Your Social Media Plan Doesn't Deliver

Many brands enter social media because they feel they have to, so as not to “miss out”. They read about Old Spice’s Mustafa or get forwarded the Double Rainbow meme and have visions of millions of adoring people sharing and talking about their brand for zero dollars invested.

They start a Facebook page or open a Twitter account, quickly realize it is a commitment, and after telling their agencies that they want a viral idea, one of two things typically happens:

1. Through perseverance they stumble along until slowly, they figure it out
2. Upon failing to achieve their viral dreams they say social media is not worth the investment, which they came to realize was more than zero dollars, and thus add to the scrap heap of dormant brand pages that exist in a half-life state of digital carbonite - a permanent echo of aspirations unrealized

Is that overly dramatized? Sure - but it is not entirely unrealistic either. The fact is, Point 2 can be avoided and Point 1 can be optimized by identifying metrics that link back to actual business goals.

Is that oversimplified? Not really - yet I am continually impressed by how few brand marketers think in those terms when it comes to social media.

The reason being is twofold. First, so many agencies falsely claim social media proficiency in order to cash in that it is difficult to get legitimate strategic direction. Second, many marketers erroneously assume that once they have a sufficiently dense following, their message will automatically spread throughout that following, be positively received, and will ultimately result in people falling in love with their brands and buying their products.

Getting “Followers” Is Not The End Goal - It Is Merely A Means Towards One
A recent Digiday article on digital ROI showed that 40% of marketers aren’t measuring social media at all, and for those that do, top metrics include: purchase (67%), time spent (54%), sharing (51%) and likes/followers (less than 33%).

The thing that struck me in this article, other than 40% are not measuring ROI at all, was not so much that these are the wrong metrics, but that these metrics (except for maybe purchase) are actually only part of a solution to broader challenges. However in discussing ROI, marketers often fail to link these metrics back to their business objectives, and are in turn forcing them to stand alone without context for measurement.

Do you need to create greater brand awareness? Is yours a premium priced product in an inelastic commodity category? Are you facing better resourced competitors?  The potential challenges facing brand growth are as endless as they are diverse, but I can definitively say that the end solution to any of these challenges is not to get more Facebook “likes” or Twitter followers.

If your objective is to get 100 or 100 Million followers but you are not tying that back to how it solves for your brand challenges, then you are only looking at half of the puzzle, that is to say, you are not answering the real question of; “Once I have this community, what would I like them to do for me and what will I provide in return for that ask?” The answer to the first part of that question is your objective to measure against and the answer to the latter part is your strategy to achieve it.

Followers, time spent or any of the myriad digital metrics are merely just a means to a greater end, and if you look at them in isolation to that end, you are essentially just staring at Plato’s shadows on the cave’s wall. You have to make your metrics tie.