en•ovation group

July 21st, 2009

Source: Marketing News (07.30.09)

Author: Don E. Schultz

Advertising and marketing communication has historically been all about persuasion. In fact, one of the earliest definitions of advertising was “salesmanship in print,” which simply meant persuading people to buy in a non-personal way. So for at least the past 100 years, the model has been marketers making or developing products and services, and then trying to convince consumers to buy through various forms of media advertising or promotional literature.

Entire industries have been built on this premise, from training salespeople and identifying prospective customers to creating more and better selling propositions in ever more interesting ways. In short, trying to find ways to get consumers or firms to buy, because if people are buying we assume we’re selling and therefore have a successful business enterprise.

To sell, advertising people believe they have to persuade consumers. Since we don’t really know what persuades people, we research and test prospective advertising with persuasion scores or intent-to-buy measures. The premise being that good advertising can convert a customer from tire-kicker to buyer with a few well-chosen words or pictures or sounds or images. In short, persuasion factors are employed that encourage people, who the selling organization has never seen or may not even know exist, to buy.

Yet in the last few years, we’ve seen the rise of a different form of persuasive marketing communication. Person-to-person communication, rather than marketer-to-customer persuasion. Today millions of consumers follow every movement of the rash of new instant celebrities - people we hardly even knew existed until they were called to our attention by our electronic pen pals, the E! Network and what formerly were known as morning news shows, all of which have morphed into celebrity celebrations.

In short, persuasion is no longer in the hands of marketing departments or advertising agencies, or even the recognized media. It’s in the hands of people who ask if they can communicate with us via LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or some of the interactive communication systems of the moment.

The challenge, of course, is that marketers, advertisers and promotion specialists still favor the old persuasion techniques. TV commercials, radio spots, magazine ads, in-store promotional materials, all are designed to persuade the customer to buy. Unfortunately, it appears the ever-elusive consumer is ignoring marketers’ appeals because she is downloading the latest hit single by manufactured singing groups.

So persuasion seems to have changed. No longer are major consumer product brands persuading consumers to buy with their well-researched and beautifully executed promotional programs. Instead, consumers are being persuaded by what were formerly the marketer’s target markets: by consumers promoting their favorite music or sports or even fashion idols through the new communication forms. And seemingly, once a few technology-empowered enthusiasts are encouraged or engaged or involved, the entire world stops worrying about North Korea and its atomic arsenal, and focuses only on whether they can convice friends, neighbors, associates or acquaintances to cast their ballots for their current favorite from Dancing with the Stars.

We learned some lessons from Barack Obama in his surge to the White House. Friends, acquaintances, neighbors and communities with similar interests do matter. Contacts matter. Causes matter. Hopes and dreams matter. And they matter big time. Getting a call from a friend asking for your support for Barack seemed to have much more power, certainly persuasive power, than all the TV commercials the Swift Boat Boys could muster.

The point of all this? The advertising community, the people who supposedly invented the art of persuasion, seems to have lost its edge. It’s been pushed into the background by the 13-year-old who learned how to piece together bits and pieces of audio and video and forward them onto her Internet friends who push them on to their friends in a never-ending cycle of contacts until the 13-year-old, or someone like her, starts a new persuasion circle. Today, those cycles seems endless, like the circles in a pond when a pebble is dropped.

The problem is that persuasion being in the hands of consumers may signal a profound shift in the advertising and marketing communication world we have known for the past couple of centuries. Maybe the road to persuasion isn’t about convincing as much as it is about involving.

Quite honestly, advertising people don’t know very much about persuasion. I argue marketers don’t really persuade people to buy products or services. More often, it’s simply that marketers beat consumers into communication submission with a barrage of commercials and advertisements on everything from urinal splash mats to continuous-loop screens in the back of taxis. Inane messages about product benefits and better-than-competitor claims are supposed to encourage consumers to rush to the store to pick up the latest product innovation, but most today don’t persuade, they simply annoy.

We’re in the midst of what I believe is an economic and communication transformation. The shift of persuasion power to the 13-year-old with a laptop and a cell phone is only one of the manifestations of that transformation. Persuasion, it seems, isn’t or can’t be measured by gross rating points or exposures, or even by the fabled advertising research persuasion scores. It can only be measured by what people do. And unfortunately, more people today seem to be persuaded by the 13-year-old than what the highly acclaimed, black-clad, agency creative genius can generate. It doesn’t say much for the future of a once-proud advertising industry. But then what could you expect from a group that still seems to think a Cannes award is the epitome of persuasion?

Entry Filed under: Articles of Interest