Why are we spending so much time and money in Congress focusing on a private bill addressed at just one person’s tragic story? It’s certainly not about saving lives–in the same amount of time, Congress could save thousands of lives, not just one. Those lives, however, don’t make good TV.
Congresspeople from both sides of the aisle are falling over themselves to see who can get the most airtime talking about the case of Terri Schiavo. Not because it’s a legislative priority or because the medical facts support their efforts. They’re doing it because it’s a compelling story, a story with a simple, vivid, powerful argument on one side and a more subtle, fact-based analysis on the other.
Because we’re people, not computers, the first kind of story usually wins.
Regardless of your point of view about the issue, the marketer in us has to acknowledge that this is all about the story. It usually is.
Why do so many people (especially some of the suburban moms I know) hate minivans?
A minivan gets better mileage, is safer and is easier to manage for shlepping a bunch of humans. And dollar for dollar, a minivan is actually cheaper than an SUV of the same size.
So if it’s better and safer and cheaper… why hate em?
Because of the story, of course. Somewhere along the way, we believed a lie about the personality of the person who chooses to drive a minivan. The soccer mom lie. A simple story that cost Detroit billions of dollars–and our economy billions in lost gas mileage.
As we saw in the Easter Bunny example, new ideas can travel with old stories.
Congress succeeded brilliantly with the Easter Bunny technique just this week. By calling Mark McGwire and other baseball players to testify about steroid use (and doing it during spring training), they instantly escalated the profile of the issue of drug abuse by teen athletes.
Now, whenever someone talks about McGwire, they will automatically be talking about steroid use. The two stories get intertwined and are more likely to get noticed.
Yes, smart Congressmen are marketers too (you already knew they were liars).
It wasn’t until 1,600 years after Jesus that the Bunny became associated with Easter. If you think about it, it’s pretty weird (bunnies don’t lay eggs), but it’s part of a long standing pattern of new religions stealing symbols and stories from older religions.
Bunnies are pretty prolific creatures, and thousands of years ago pagans picked them as a symbol of new life. Spring being the season of new life, bunnies were a sign of celebration and good luck. The story is a good one, and it spread.
Just like Christmas trees and lights in the window for the winter holidays, the marketers responsible for spreading the word about Christianity appropriated the symbol to help them market the new holiday.
Have I mentioned that Godiva is owned by Campbell’s Soup? Godiva
Ten or fifteen years ago, I took Milton Glaser’s class at the School for Visual Arts in New York. It was a portfolio class, which means you had to have talent to get in.
I didn’t. (have talent). I persisted, and we agreed that I could take the class with all these fancypants designers on probation. My point to him was that I was going to commission and use a lot of design in my career, and I’d be a good part of the mix. The deal was that I’d sit in for three classes and then he could decide if I added value or not.
The first class I was too scared to participate, but I learned a lot.
The second class, I participated and added some good thoughts.
The third class, I disagreed twice with points he made. It may be that I was the first person in a while who had disagreed with him twice.
He threw me out.
It turns out that: a. I was right about what I disagreed with him on. b. I should have figured out how to stay in the class. c. I ended up buying and doing a lot of design. Go figure.
Anyway, Milton’s been thinking a lot of the thoughts I’ve been sharing on this blog. Worth a read, click below:
I bought gas for my car today and put the credit card in upside down. Took a few minutes in the snow to figure out what was going on.
But wait. Computers are close to free. Why should it be my job to put the card in right side up? Why can’t the machine read the card in every direction?
Think of how often computers, the web, machines, voice mail systems and other devices require us to change our behavior to make it more convenient for the chip or the chip designer.
I think there’s a huge opportunity in using massively redundant computer systems to allow humans to be stupid again.
Exhibit A: Why isn’t backing up considered an automatic function too important to be left to the user?
Over the last decade or two, many neighborhoods have seen the price of homes increase by 100 to 1000%. Because real estate agents charge a commission based on selling price, this means that many agents make ten times as much as they used to for selling a house.
Obviously, they’re not doing ten times as much work.
Sooner or later, in any business that works on percentages, things change and the commissions come under pressure. You can be defensive about this or you can see it as an opportunity.
One broker in Massachusetts now works by the hour (Beating the Realtor commission system). If I were a broker, I’d take the increased cash flow and spend it as fast as I could. I’d fundamentally change what I offer and include a wide range of free services–from a free paint job to help sell the house to a new big screen TV for the buyer or the seller. I’d hire assistants and build a permission-based computer system. I’d realize that no industry is static, especially one where the rates go up by a factor of ten in just a short time.
Obviously, this is about more than just real estate. If you work by the hour, what would happened if you charged a commission instead? (PR folks? Lawyers?) What happens to the sales process when you flip from success-based pricing to time-based? Or the other way around?
Many marketers and millions of consumers are aware that there ain’t no Haagen, there ain’t no Dazs and the popular brand of ice cream is nothing but a lie.
Does it matter?
Two made up words, a product that has nothing whatever to do with Scandinavia and gleaming stainless steel factories pumping the stuff out by the ton–it doesn’t change the fact that we’re more likely to pay extra for a Haagen Dazs than we would for the identical product from Hood or Sealtest.
And knowing doesn’t really seem to matter. Knowing that there’s no truthful difference appears to be irrelevant. I think that’s because there’s a non-rational, even emotional part of our brain that yearns for the story.
Why are we spending so much time and money in Congress focusing on a private bill addressed at just one person’s tragic story? It’s certainly not about saving lives–in the same amount of time, Congress could save thousands of lives, not just one. Those lives, however, don’t make good TV.
As we saw in the Easter Bunny example, new ideas can travel with old stories.
It wasn’t until 1,600 years after Jesus that the Bunny became associated with Easter. If you think about it, it’s pretty weird (bunnies don’t lay eggs), but it’s part of a long standing pattern of new religions stealing symbols and stories from older religions.
Many marketers and millions of consumers are aware that there ain’t no Haagen, there ain’t no Dazs and the popular brand of ice cream is nothing but a lie.
