Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.
—Bertrand Russell
THE CEO OF GENERAL MOTORS DID SOMETHING THAT IN BUSI-ness circles would ordinarily never have even raised an eyebrow. In 2008 Rick Wagoner, then-leader of one of the world’s top ten largest corporations, stepped onto the tarmac and boarded his company’s 36 million luxury aircraft. His company at the time was the biggest automaker in the world, a dominance sustained for several decades since 1932. Flying on the corporate jet was business as usual, affording Wagoner the ability to more flexibly and efficiently attend routine meetings across far-flung business operations. But on that November day, Wagoner’s journey was anything but ordinary in these extraordinary times for both GM and the American buying public.1 The end of the first decade of the twenty-first century found the United States reeling from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, and business as usual had quickly changed to business under fire.2
On that morning, Wagoner was on his way to Washington to testify before the House Financial Services Committee in his bid to save the beleaguered automaker from bankruptcy. He told members of Congress that his company was precariously burning through cash and requested 10–12 billion in “bail out” loans.3 All of the CEOs from the Big Three—GM, Ford, and Chrysler—who collectively sought 25 billion in government loans made the same mistake. All flew in their separate corporate jets departing out of Detroit. The estimated cost of one of these round trip flights from Detroit to Washington was about 20,000. In comparison, a first-class seat on Northwest Airlines was available online for 837. Those routine plane trips, which combined carried about a 60,000 price tag, inadvertently became the flint that sparked public outrage, a conflagration fueled by the media that spread like wildfire from Capitol Hill to the far corners of the American landscape.4
Wagoner told the Senate Banking Committee, “We want to continue the vital role we’ve played for Americans for the past 100 years, but we can’t do it alone,” yet committee members had little interest in historical musings or self-aggrandizement. They needed to know what GM was doing right then to fix their financial woes and, if given a second chance, how they planned to do things differently to become a viable company again in the future.5 Wagoner resolutely maintained that cost reduction changes were already in place. “We’re all slashing back,” he explained, further promising, “We’re going to be dramatically leaner.”6
Moments later Rep. Gary Ackerman fired back, pointing to the glaring and troubling inconsistency of Wagoner’s plea for more public funds in spite of continued excessive private spending. He called it a “delicious irony” and “a little bit suspicious,” offering the evocative metaphor, “It’s almost like seeing a guy show up at a soup kitchen in a high hat and tuxedo.”
Ackerman reasoned, “Couldn’t you all have downgraded to first class or jet-pooled to get here? It would have at least sent the message that you do get it.”7 Later in the hearing, Rep. Brad Sherman openly tested the management of the Big Three by posing a challenge and, perhaps, a chance at redemption. He asked if any of the CEOs planned to sell their private corporate jets? There was a long pause of dead air and then crickets. When not a single hand was raised, the embittered Sherman remained unmoved: “I don’t know how I go back to my constituents and say, ‘The auto industry has changed.’”8
This incident was merely the straw that broke the camel’s back, a poignant reminder to strapped and stressed Americans of a much bigger problem in play. The Big Three were being judged with heightened skepticism because of the climate of general distrust that is often created, and regularly undermines economies, during times of recession. Trust was the central theme of Adam Smith’s vision for progress of humankind and the driver that fuels individual energy, creativity, and market growth. When consumer confidence is shaken and trust compromised, markets contract because individuals withdraw. Regaining confidence is the key to turning things around.9
Much like Marie Antoinette’s alleged suggestion to the breadless, starving French populace to “let them eat cake,” Wagoner’s use of the private plane reinforced people’s belief that General Motors was out of touch with the reality of the times and the values of Americans who once so proudly drove their vehicles. More significant was how blind the execs were to the great depths of that divide, a breach that began decades earlier when American carmakers failed to anticipate and compete with the cost structure and quality of the Asian imports that ultimately usurped the American car market. GM, once the symbol of US prosperity, was now hobbled with debt and dysfunction and fettered by bureaucracy. The quintessential American company, once beloved by many, was now the object of derision and disdain.
Wagoner’s blunder certainly interrupted the pattern of everyone’s attention, but it also sparked a media frenzy. It tripped an alarm deep inside the public psyche, the cultural equivalent of triggering the aggressive or fearful fight-or-flight response in the brain’s amygdala. The problem was GM was no longer in rapport with Americans or car buyers. The fact that people simply no longer had confidence in the carmaker’s ability to repay their bailout highlights a basic human and business truth: Before you can even begin to push your business model on to consumers, you first need to understand their model of reality. As Stephen Covey puts it, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”10
Consumers anthropomorphize brands as people, viewing their representatives (whether it is a greeter at Wal-Mart or the CEO of a Fortune 100 corporation) as the face of the brand. The word “corporate” comes from the Latin root corporatus, which means made into a body, hence the legal term “body corporate” refers to a corporation. The best way to build rapport with people or companies is to share in their beliefs and behaviors. When we don’t mesh with someone, when he or she rubs us the wrong way, or when we don’t aspire to the same values and passions, we routinely dismiss that person, just as we reject brands that are out of sync with our own lives.
While pattern interrupts, the first step to behavior change, alert our attention, they also narrow and direct our focus, preparing us for possible threats. But the next step on the path to sales closure requires opening the prospect’s mind to new possibilities, a mental state that only comes with an easing of tensions and a building of trust. Before you get your consumers really excited about your product or brand, you need to first reduce their apprehension to make them receptive to your pitch. In other words, you need to connect with them in a harmonious, empathetic, authoritative, and believable manner, which leads to a level of comfort and rapport in your overture.
According to a study led by Dr. Michel Tuan Pham at Columbia University, shoppers who are more relaxed are more likely to ascribe higher values to a product, which also lends to a willingness to pay more. The researchers showed subjects videos known to relax or excite people and then asked those subjects to place values on certain products, even using an eBay-style auction to allow them to place bids on everyday items such as car tires, paper shredders, and tennis rackets. They found that the relaxed participants would pay about 15 percent more than those less relaxed. The researchers concluded that one of the key elements to accomplish this—in terms of evolutionary psychology—is the reduction of threat levels. Humans have evolved for many millennia to first and foremost avoid harm, which is why our skittish nature can make us very fickle consumers.
When a shopper is in a state of heightened arousal and stress, he or she is more likely to focus on the rational, concrete components of the sales pitch—details like cost, product specifications, hard facts, and potential limitations. When shoppers are more relaxed, and any outstanding threats subside, they are more apt to open their minds to abstract thinking, enabling them to envision possible benefits, such as how the product might accomplish their future goals, as well as the more cultural and emotional implications of the purchase.11 In their state of agitation, the House Financial Services Committee simply could not conceptualize the hypothetical possibilities of a better future for GM. Their stress had them fixated on the implications of the flights, even if the cost of a single trip on a private jet was a fraction of a multibillion-dollar bailout.12
Months after that ill-fated trip to Capitol Hill, General Motors management told Deutsch LA, one of their advertising agencies, the highly confidential news that they were anticipating bankruptcy. They asked for our assistance in making the announcement, hoping that we might be able to help them get Americans back on their side by convincing the public that GM would be viable again if given a second chance. The effort had to announce Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, convince people that the company was truly changing for the better, and sell cars in an incredibly anemic car market, one of the lowest in the industry’s history. The goal was to help GM emerge quickly from bankruptcy with a revitalized focus on profitability and fewer, but stronger and leaner, core brands.
Mike Sheldon, leader of our agency in LA, was deeply attuned to the task at hand. He grew up in a Detroit suburb and was the son of a GM executive. Mike pulled the team into his office, closed the door, and told us: “We are under a microscope. The work we are about to create will be dissected like private jets. This will be the single most scrutinized and criticized effort you will ever work on in your career.” We were to be judged by the same millions of Americans who had already cast judgment on GM, writing them off. We were being asked to take what many would perceive as more public money and turn it into an advertising campaign promoting yet more private interests. Would this self-promotion fall into the same perceptual bucket as excessive spending? Would the public respond by saying, “Make better cars, not ads”? Should GM even be advertising right now? Was there a better way to communicate their plight and plan?
In order to answer these looming questions and write the creative brief for the assignment, I decided to do focus groups to talk to car shoppers across the United States instead of conducting quantitative surveys. I can always get to the bottom of an issue faster and more accurately by observing respondents in person because I can view their unconscious reactions and their emotions, and not just what they report. I provide more weight to emotional responses and body language, and if there is incongruence between word and deed, I can challenge the response and dig deeper, probing the core areas of my seven-step process. Over and over again I heard panelists tell me that they simply couldn’t care less about GM’s fate. They scolded and blamed upper management for “resting on their laurels” and “not being able to build cars that people wanted.” But their intense emotions belied their words. If they really didn’t care about GM, why were they so worked up and so pissed off? There’s an old adage, “The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference,” and these people were anything but indifferent.
Beneath the surface GM represented something that was both much wider in scope and deeply personal: “the American dream.” This sentiment had been best expressed by the lyrics of the former jingle of its flagship brand: “Baseball, hotdogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet.” We also couldn’t let a linchpin of the US economy go under. As one panelist suggested, “GM is to the US economy what Kevin Bacon is to the acting community.” There were six degrees of separation between the American automotive industry and every other aspect of our national economy. If GM went belly up, the ripple effect meant a potential crippling blow to both our fragile economy and our nation’s psyche. But a communication approach that reminded them of this fact was destined to backfire. It would be perceived as a threat and an attempt at manipulation. Using fear tactics among an already frightened audience would only fuel their antipathy. The sticking point was comfort. GM had already grabbed the attention of the public. The next step was to assuage their alarm, placating their animosity so that they could be responsive and listen to what GM had to say.
What we discovered was that GM’s plight was really an unconscious symbol for the plight of all Americans. GM’s decline was emblematic of national decline, a painful reminder that America’s collective star had fallen in an increasingly competitive global marketplace. The ironic truth was that beneath the vitriol people really cared deeply about GM. The real reason why people were so upset with GM was that they felt let down—GM’s looming demise deep down engendered a feeling of vulnerability. They were worried about their own fate and that of their children in a country whose supremacy and prosperity was crumbling before their eyes.
Among all the ideas I explored in the initial set of focus groups, there was one approach that really gained traction. Eric Hirshberg, our then-president and chief creative officer, had written a brief speech, which I read aloud to the panelists, highlighting the themes of transparency, responsibility, and action. The idea was to have Wagoner come clean and man-up by addressing the public from the headquarters at the Renaissance Center in Detroit, acknowledging GM’s shortcomings and mistakes, and declaring the rebirth of GM in a very open, honest, and public fashion. The speech really touched a nerve with just about everyone in the focus groups. But unlike the corporate jet saga, this time the vibe was quite comforting. As I read it, the participants’ arms uncrossed, their brow furrows dissipated, and slight but authentic smiles emerged in acknowledgment. The shift in the room was palpable, not unlike observing quarreling good friends finally finding a pivotal moment of common ground.
The power of the speech was not so much the facts or the language, but the way it was written, and more importantly how it began. It did something that few marketers will ever consider doing: It began with a statement of wrongdoing. This led to a huge breakthrough moment. Despite their malevolent wishes and angry protests, most Americans were silently hoping to be led out of this mess by GM, the object of their scorn. People simply needed to hear GM admit to their mistakes, much like a friend who waits to hear another say, “I’m sorry, I screwed up.” The American public was so incensed because it was easier to hide behind the conscious defenses of their indignation and anger than to expose their real fear and inner insecurities. Anger and fear are essentially two sides of the same coin, and are even centered around the same part of the brain, the amygdala.
Encouraged by that epiphany, I entered the back room on the other side of the two-way mirror to check for questions. I told my colleague Tom Else, the leader of the GM account team, that there was a “nugget of gold” in that speech. Ironically, while I had been calming the nerves of panelists in the focus room through the eloquent speech, Tom was getting all riled up in the back room. He could no longer contain his agitation, exclaiming loudly with arms flailing, “Are you out of your fucking mind! We can’t have Wagoner give that speech!” Tom was right. The speech was wrong. But not all wrong. It couldn’t come from Wagoner. Context often determines the meaning of a communication, and Wagoner was the wrong envelope to deliver this message. He was collateral damage of a war waged by the media and no longer a credible authority. And since there were no plans at that point to replace him as CEO, it simply wouldn’t fly. It would be better to deflect the focus away from troubled management and use a television announcement as the conduit for those same ideas. Hirshberg had brilliantly found a window back into the hearts of people, and it was the tone of that voice that finally made the medicine go down smoothly. A dose of contrition and an ounce of humility would convince Americans that GM had indeed “got it” and was on the path to recovery.
A sixty-second spot began by admitting up front, “Let’s be completely honest, no company wants to go through this,” and that “there was a time when our cost structure could compete worldwide . . . not anymore.” The ad showed a series of “down but not out” imagery, a runner racing with determination encumbered somewhat by a specially designed prosthetic leg, a hockey player knocked down to the ice, a tattered and ripped American flag flapping helplessly in a storm. It was punctuated with a nod to gritty defiance by cutting to a giant bronze statue of famed boxer Joe Louis’s fist, which stands in downtown Detroit. These images served as rich metaphors that connected deeply with our intuitive unconscious.
The ad was not just an emotional message but also a rational outline of a business plan of action that made it believable: fewer brands and models, greater efficiency, greener cars, and new technologies. It concluded on an upbeat note proactively proclaiming: “This is not about going out of business. This is about getting down to business. Because the only chapter we’re focused on is Chapter 1.” In the end, the ad suggested that Chapter 11 was not the death knell of GM but rather a much-needed catalyst for the rebirth of the leaner, stronger, and better GM, and by implication, a better America. GM had finally stepped to the plate and said, “I got this!”
“Chapter 1,” as the spot was called, ran in heavy rotation beginning on June 1, 2009, the day that GM filed for bankruptcy. It helped lay down the foundation for the recovery of a new company and was praised in the press for being straightforward. It began to reverse the tide against GM as they came out of bankruptcy in a record-breaking 40 days. The campaign dubbed “reinvention” helped sell cars when the bottom had dropped out of the market, moving business metrics upward during the launch and the months that followed. It won a David Ogilvy Gold Award for the automotive industry, the industry’s top achievement for breakthrough research insight that creates a powerful, profitable campaign.13
All too often marketers puff out their chests, making even bolder and bigger claims in the face of adversity, only to create greater social distance. When someone tells us how great they are, we just see their flaws. We see through the veil of their insecurities and their hidden agendas. Sometimes when we lead with the self-deprecation of our foibles, our status ascends as our audience intuits confidence because our minds process information through inference. This same counterintuitive, self-effacing approach has helped classic advertisers discover advantage in disadvantage. Avis rental cars said, “We try harder” because “we are number 2, not number 1,” in an ad series deemed among the top ten campaigns of all time. Likewise, Listerine proclaimed, “The taste you love to hate,” which helped it to lead the mouthwash category, a position it still enjoys today. And a classic 1966 Volkswagen Beetle print ad, created with the honesty, charm, and wit characterized by ad legend Bill Bernbach, boldly stated that “Ugly is only skin deep.” The brand and the car led the creative revolution in marketing and advertising and sold a ton of Beetles. It also transformed the American automotive industry long before the Asian imports succeeded. It might seem ironic, but so too is the mind.
Nature and nurture have instilled programs within our minds that seek out the deeper meaning behind every message, taking nothing at face value. This is especially true for marketing messages that, experience has taught us, seek first to profit and influence. The un-suspected trap Wagoner and the Big Three leaders flew into was that their actions were not aligned with their words. All too often marketers say one thing and do another. They view communications plans as separate from business operations. This antiquated view flies in the face of the current age of information and transparency in which consumers are empowered to level the playing the field by publicly calling “bullshit”—a reality all marketers need to heed or prepare to endure the consequences. Harmonious connection to people and brands is often determined by the extent to which there is alignment of their words, appearance, behavior, and deeds. When companies are out of sync with their own promises and the sensibilities of consumers, people instinctively develop a feeling of distrust that reflexively undermines corporate intentions. As Richard Dawkins says, “We are evolved to second-guess the behaviors of others by becoming brilliant intuitive psychologists.”14
Our brains do this by unconsciously scanning for contrast and inconsistencies in the information being interpreted. This process equips consumers with bullshit radars that communicate the perils of deception and the treachery of cheaters through the feelings generated by their low-road unconscious circuitry. When things don’t add up, or something just doesn’t feel right, it is because the brain is simultaneously parallel processing multiple channels of sensory information. When there is a mismatch of signals being sent, neuro-chemicals of stress like cortisol are released, warning us to hold back and be wary. It’s not unlike making eye contact with a stranger on the street who looks normal enough and acknowledges you pleasantly, yet something feels inexplicably askew. Sure enough, the person approaches you and asks: “Can I borrow a dollar?” This also happens when a salesman tells you that someone else is interested in buying the car you are checking out, but he’ll make you a deal if you buy it today. Inauthentic advertising and salesmanship are like telling someone how much you care while simultaneously averting your gaze and fidgeting nervously. Incongruities generate the chemicals of our anxious, cautious emotions.
But we are not only programmed to detect deception; we are also made to challenge the affront. Humans often instinctively respond to attempts of being cheated with aggression, a strategy in game theory known as tit for tat, or the English expression for “equivalent retaliation.” This human strategy evolved to ensure stability, fairness, and prosperity in hunter-gatherer societies.15 Tit for tat, much like reciprocal altruism, reflects our inclination to not only reward nice people but also punish bad ones. We have evolved to possess both an acute sense of feeling wronged and also a drive to articulate that threat in the form of public outrage. Individual grievances become collective sanctions as we raise red flags to others, not unlike the warning call of a bird signaling to the flock in the presence of a predator. So strong is this instinct that we do so at our own peril, provoking and challenging big business behemoths much like the brave bird who draws attention to the hawk only to expose itself to predation. It may seem ironic that some of our noblest and most selfless moral intentions come from the depths of our most primitive and unthinking parts of the brain.16
Today social media provides ample opportunity to amplify this effect, exposing wrongdoers or singing the praises of do-gooders.17 For instance, Trip Advisor has revolutionized the hotel industry, Yelp has forever changed the way in which we dine, and Amazon.com reviews and recommendations have transformed the landscape of the publishing industry. According to Forrester, an independent research company that provides advice to global leaders in business and technology, there are approximately 500 billion word-of-mouth impressions created every day in social media—online word of mouth now rivals advertising. The management consulting firm McKinsey and Company estimates that two-thirds of the US economy is now driven by word of mouth.18
In this new paradigm of transparency, marketers can no longer simply buy trust through advertising, and companies can no longer view marketing as a veneer across their business model, the face to the public. They will need to earn it through better products and services. If the aim of marketing is to connect to the sensibilities of today’s consumers, business must begin to treat communication efforts as central, not peripheral or incremental, to business processes. Today many marketers still view the term “integration” as only making their communications efforts “look and feel” as if they are coming from one place . . . and one voice. But increasingly, it’s less about what you say and more about what others say about you, and more importantly, what you do. Any good psychologist will tell you the most effective way to change someone else’s behavior is to change your own. Integration should not just be about how marketing appears but also about how businesses act.
There may be a lot of truth to John Lennon’s observation that “All you need is love,” which in many ways parallels the adage “Without trust there is nothing.” And science is proving both. Researchers have identified the physiological basis for establishing trust, a neurotransmitter known as oxytocin, also known as the “love drug.” Excitement over the neurotransmitter began in the 1990s when researchers noted its calming effect on breast-feeding women.19 Oxytocin is best known as the biochemical facilitator of familial bonding behavior between mothers and infants as well as pair bonding in mates. It is most easily generated by physical contact, spiking during activities such as breast-feeding, hugging, cuddling, and sexual intercourse.20 But in recent years the focus has shifted toward its effects on all of us, as males and females alike produce the hormone. It turns out we don’t just consciously choose to trust someone. Trust is a feeling generated at deeper levels, often in reaction to our physical environment but also induced by our internal thoughts and imagination.
The latest research shows that the neurochemical is also the catalyst for successful economic exchanges. Dr. Paul Zak of Claremont Graduate University, one of the founders of the emerging field of neuroeconomics, which combines economics with neuroscience, biology, and psychology, calls oxytocin the “social glue” that binds people and societies and the “economic lubricant” that enables a host of transactions on which markets depend.21 His pioneering work has earned him the nickname “Dr. Love.” Suggesting that oxytocin is the chemical behind morality and reciprocal altruism, Zak explains, “We discovered that this molecule in the brain called oxytocin is released when someone trusts us and induces us to reciprocate trust.”
In many ways today’s markets and digital economies are at odds with the ways in which trust is generated. Exchanges are based upon financial transactions, not upon the emotional and physical bonds between people, and virtual realities often remove physical interaction from the equation altogether. There is a dearth of the unity, security, and personal connection that has bonded people together throughout the history of evolution among tightly knit bands of people. As evolutionary psychologist John Tooby states, “In hunter-gatherer societies . . . there is a real feeling of closeness, but in market societies though the absolute welfare goes way up . . . it creates a deep insecurity; do these people really care about me or not?”22 In hunter-gatherer societies implicit caring, not explicit financial exchange, was the basis for altruistic transactions. Evolutionary psychologist Leda Cosmides adds, “Explicit exchange is a sign of social distance . . . every time I go to Starbucks and get a mocha I’m engaged in explicit exchange . . . every time I do that, I’m getting a signal of social distance . . . that these people do not care about my welfare, that I’m not uniquely valued.”23
Zak believes trust is the key factor that determines whether or not a society is working well, creating lower crime, better education, and greater economic development. In a 2011 interview, he explained to me how Norway—the nation with the highest levels of trust—has more stable governments and higher income levels. “Social capital” begets “economic capital” as the positive interactions of its citizenry enable greater and more robust transactions and larger markets. He believes that Norway’s high levels of trust are because many of its citizens share common ancestry and surnames. You are more likely to trust your relatives and similar others, just as we did back in hunter-gatherer times when tribes were often comprised of close kin. Treating others as you would your own family is not just good for humanity; it’s good for business and the economy.24
Swiss and American scientists have demonstrated that by increasing oxytocin levels, you can increase investment behavior. Using a nasal spray containing the neurotransmitter, they found that a group of investors were much more willing to trust a stranger posing as a financial adviser. The group that got a few squirts of the oxytocin nasal spray offered twice as much money as the group that only received a placebo. Those who received the dose felt more secure that their investment would pay off even though there were no guarantees of profit, demonstrating that the hormone oxytocin triggers the brain’s “trust circuits.”25 It diminishes the levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which activates the fight-or-flight response, making us feel more secure and reducing anxiety.26
And according to Zak’s research, the hormone can even increase advertising effectiveness. Zak discovered that oxytocin also raises empathy toward issues in television ads. In another study, participants were given sniffs of oxytocin and shown public service announcements regarding global warming, smoking, alcohol, and reckless driving. They were then given the opportunity to contribute some of the money they earned for participating in the research study. Those that received oxytocin gave 56 percent more money to the advertised causes than those who received a placebo. As Zak says, “Our results show why puppies and babies are in toilet paper commercials.”27
And according to Thomas Crook, PhD, CEO of Cognitive Research Corporation in Florida, and a former researcher with the National Institutes for Mental Health, our thoughts can trigger increases in levels of the hormone. Crook explains that familiar thoughts and comforting sensations like the smells of your mom’s signature cookies, the dawn choir of chirping birds, or the sound of your favorite music can trigger positive memories that release oxytocin. In a research study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, happily married women quickly released a dose of the hormone just by daydreaming about their husbands while they were apart.28 Similarly, Zak observed that using social media can result in a double-digit increase in oxytocin levels. One research participant exhibited an astounding 150 percent increase while online at his girl-friend’s Facebook page and another subject increased oxytocin levels simply by tweeting to his social network—both demonstrating that the brain does not differentiate among real or imagined or virtual friends.29
In fact the “love drug” may be at the heart of the success of the much-lauded Southwest effect in the airline industry, whose ticker on the New York Stock Exchange is LUV. The well-documented economic impact of that effect—which reduces costs for travelers across the board and increases air traffic to cities serviced by the airline— has engendered goodwill among its customers for years and may in part be fueled by employee and customer bonding and oxytocin. In 2009 Southwest Airlines was the largest airline in the world based on the number of passengers that fly the airline each year,30 and in 2011 it was not only America’s leading low-cost carrier but was also rated America’s favorite airline by Consumer Reports.31
Joe Harris, a labor lawyer for Southwest, explains that the company’s harmonious employee relations are no accident. “At Southwest, our employees come first; our customers come second; and our stockholders come third,” he said. “The rationale is pretty simple. If we treat our employees right, they’re going to treat our customers right. If our customers are treated right, they will come back and our stockholders will benefit.”32 As Southwest’s CEO Gary Kelly explains: “Southwest is a company of people, not just planes. We hire great people who have a passion for serving others, and we give them the freedom to be themselves and to take care of our customers. We treat our employees like family and our customers like guests in our home. Our guiding principle is, above all else, the Golden Rule.” It’s no surprise that “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” is also what evolutionary psychologists call reciprocal altruism, the enduring cornerstone of humanity since the dawn of man.
To accomplish bonding with customers, Southwest uses its fundamental understanding of the value of physical social interactions. They have brilliantly turned a captive audience of travelers into an opportunity to demonstrate how much they care about them. One customer wrote to Southwest to thank the flight attendant who helped her and her fiancé on their way to California to get married. The flight attendant assisted them with their carry-on luggage, which included the wedding dress; he then gave them a free cocktail and, to top it off, as the flight was preparing to land, he got on the public address system and asked all passengers to close their window shades to provide a candlelight ambience before he sang to the young couple. The customer wrote, “I want to sincerely thank this flight attendant for going above and beyond his job description and for adding a special touch to a trip we’ll always remember!”33 With greatly narrowing windows of physical interaction with customers, companies would be better served to identify touch points and to surprise and delight their clients rather than upselling or ignoring them. Southwest turned their captive audience of travelers into a brand-building opportunity. Similarly, other interactions such as requesting to speak to a customer service agent can also be turned into a branding moment, not just an annoying sales call.
Consumers are increasingly cautious of privacy issues online, fearful of placing their information in the wrong hands. By their very nature, digital business models collect terabytes of personal data that can be used to the company’s advantage to better target their sales efforts and lure advertisers. In addition, these models remove physical contact and proximity to people, the most powerful means of engendering trustworthiness. On the flip side, the virtual realm opens up the opportunities to increase rapport and gain respect by understanding and responding to people’s needs, beliefs, and behaviors—a key prerequisite to comfort building. What these models lose in their physical proximity to people, they can potentially gain in customer knowledge and empathic anticipation. The future of online businesses rests in this delicate balance of navigating the competing interests of privacy and personal attention.
For instance, Amazon.com is among the world’s leaders in sharing information with advertisers. Yet Amazon’s use of that information—drawing from the receipts of its more than 59 million active customers—has demonstrated that well-crafted personalization and service can overcome privacy fears.34 In fact, Amazon.com, according to a research study reported in 2010 by Millward Brown, ranks as the most trusted brand in America. This study also concluded that the long-term success of a brand depends upon trust plus recommendation, confirming that brands excelling along these dimensions enjoy a brand-customer bond ten times in excess of the average and are nearly seven times more likely to be purchased, exhibiting a high likelihood of near-term growth in market share.35
Unlike traditional marketers that invest primarily in high-level branding efforts through advertising, Amazon has built its trust from the bottom up by focusing on better products, pricing, and customer service. As Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says, “Advertising is the price you pay for having an unremarkable product or service.”36 In an interview with Wired’s Chris Anderson, Bezos explained, “We did a 15-month-long test of TV advertising in two markets— Portland and Minneapolis—to see how much it drove our sales. And it worked, but not as much as the kind of price elasticity we knew we could get from taking those ad dollars and giving them back to consumers. So we put all that money into lower product prices and free shipping. That has significantly accelerated the growth of our business.” Bezos believes that “more and more money will go into making a great customer experience, and less will go into shouting about the service.” When asked if traditional marketers need be alarmed, Bezos remarks, “I’m not saying that advertising is going away. But the balance is shifting. If today the successful recipe is to put 70 percent of your energy into shouting about your service and 30 percent into making it great, over the next 20 years I think that’s going to invert.”37
This is not to say that big ad budgets and strong distribution levels don’t build trust and sales. The essence of branding is to create comfort, which stems directly from familiarity. It has been proven that leading a category on share of voice or distribution is a time-tested strategy for becoming the default choice in a herd-mentality market. One of the many paradoxes of the human mind is that although we are attracted to the novelty of pattern interrupts, we move toward the complacency of the established and familiar. The number one drive in human behavior and biology is homeostasis, or the seeking of the same stable, balanced, predictable state.38 Although we are excited by what is new and different, we also seek certainty and stability in our lives, deriving pleasure in the comfort of the known. We learn to love and trust what we are accustomed to, not just in terms of the people and environments we gravitate toward, but in the brands, products, and services we choose to buy.
Psychologist Robert Zajonc, of Stanford University, demonstrated that familiarity breeds affection, a process he labeled the “mere exposure effect.” Zajonc’s seminal experiment in 1968 showed participants a randomly chosen series of shapes in rapid succession, making it impossible for the group to consciously discern how often each shape was shown. What he found was that when asked which shapes they found most pleasing, subjects would reliably choose those that they had been exposed to most often, even though they had no conscious awareness of how often they had seen the shapes or which they’d seen more often.39
Numerous studies have demonstrated that this preference for familiar things can apply to important economic decisions, from the investments and donations you make to the occupations you choose, to the places you live and the brands you like to buy. An Oppenheimer study suggests that the easier a company’s name was to pronounce, the more likely a potential customer was to associate it with a sense of comfort and safety, driving up stock selection and prices.40 When Quincy, Illinois, was damaged by floods in 1993, the town received a charitable amount of assistance from people in Quincy, Massachusetts.41 And even the familiarity of one’s own name can have a peculiar influence on our decision making. People named Dennis are more likely to become dentists, Louises are more likely to move to Louisiana, and Marshas tend to prefer Mars bars instead of a Snickers bar.42 Since we gravitate to the familiar, when possible it’s always best to address your customer by name—as in direct mailers and email. Or when choosing a product name, it may be helpful to choose a term that already has meaning and familiarity with the segment of consumers you are trying to reach.43
Much as incongruities and differences push us away from some people, corresponding agreements with others can synchronize and bond us. That’s because our social brains were not designed to work in isolation but rather in a back and forth looping process with the minds of other individuals, unconsciously inclining us to transcend the boundaries of our own being. The conscious mind thinks “I.” The unconscious feels “we.” This ability to synchronize with other humans in an effort to empathize is innate and automatic. Psychologist Andrew Meltzoff, an expert on learning and child development, demonstrated this when he wagged his tongue at a baby just 42 minutes old and she wagged her tongue back.
Not surprisingly, many of us love to sing together at concerts, cheer in unison, do the wave with 80,000 other sports fans, pack ourselves mat to mat in yoga studios, pedal side by side in spinning class, dance at clubs with complete strangers, and join the club that brands provide. We are hardwired to synchronize with others through this low-road unconscious neurological process in which our mirror neurons imitate others so that we can share in the experience.44 We are constantly having deep dialogues with the world around us. These intuitive two-way conversations extend beyond the superfluous surface level of our idle, conscious chatter. When a mother embraces and bonds with her infant child, she demonstrates such unconditional love and devotion that not a single word needs to be spoken.
It sounds kind of spiritual, but the feeling is really seated in the biology of our brain. In his book I Am a Strange Loop, cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter describes the intensity of his connection to his recently deceased wife upon staring at her picture:
I looked at her face and looked so deeply that I felt I was behind her eyes and all at once I found myself saying, as tears flowed, “That’s Me. That’s Me!” And those simple words brought back many thoughts that I had had before, about the fusion of our souls into one higher-level entity, about the fact that at the core of both our souls lay our identical hopes and dreams for our children, about the notion that those hopes were not separate or distinct hopes but were just one hope, one clear thing that defined us both, that wielded us into a unit, the kind of unit I had but dimly imagined before being married and having children. I realized that though Carol had died, that core piece of her had not died at all, but that it had lived on very determinedly in my brain.45
Jeffrey Blish, chief strategy officer at Deutsch LA, who has the intuitive ability to distill vast information eloquently and succinctly, says “Truth has few words, absolute truth none.” This connection of people and brands is part of a much deeper identification. To achieve this connection, marketers need to tap into the part of the brain that seeks to merge with others. Just as people unconsciously seek a deep connection with people, brands become modern surrogates for this desire of connection. Great brands act as people that see the world as we see it, bonding us at the core of our being, as if to say, “That’s me!” or “You got me!” If you want further evidence of this just look at the incredible loyalty to brands that radiate the shared passions of their audience. Apple asked people to “think different” and “challenge the status quo” which ironically led herds of their customers to wait together for hours outside Apple stores just to be the first to buy their products. Nike tapped into our inner sense of self-loathing and desire for achievement by telling us to “Just do it!”—its logo transcending sports to encompass our life goals and aspirations as human beings. Harley-Davidson offered people the rebellious freedom to escape the confinement of the daily grind, prompting owners to view the brand with religious fervor, as well as to bond with fellow riders as if they were their own brothers. People don’t just buy products; they buy into values. When these beliefs and aspirations closely mirror their own, companies can achieve brand fans for life.
A ripe metaphor for marketers comes from the work of the great Italian artist Michelangelo, who understood the intuitive power of releasing beauty from within. He said, “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”46 As
Michelangelo demonstrated through his lifetime of enduring art, it is less about changing the nature of the physical object and more about revealing the deeper beauty that resides inside the subject. The ultimate example of this belief is his famous statue of David, sculpted out of a ruined block of marble which had been rejected by others. And in the striking Captives series, the figures emerge from the stone as if the sculptor had released them from imprisonment.47
Marketing is like art. We must find the person inside who fits the brand and release their inner, repressed desires. We need to “sculpt” people by identifying who they really are inside, not just who they wish to become. And to do so on their terms, not ours. This empowering insight cuts to the core of the inner self and not just the persona, driving great, enduring, successful branding efforts like L’Oréal’s proclamation, “Because I’m worth it,” and the U.S. Army’s rousing call to “Be all you can be.” The marketer’s role is to recognize and affirm individuals’ true ideals while facilitating their goal of authenticity.
This human insight was at the core of Call of Duty’s “There’s a soldier in all of us” ad campaign. Activision interrupted the tried and true pattern of video game launches, forgoing depictions of actual game play, instead featuring ordinary people as protagonists and heroes in their own militant fantasies. In one spot we don’t see combatting soldiers but rather plainclothes citizens, everyone from a high-heeled businesswoman to a short-order cook, taking command of the battlefield with great skill and courage. In another spot, average newbie Jonah Hill is teamed up with experienced veteran Sam Worthington as Jonah is transformed from goofy noob to self-assured badass. These efforts expanded the franchise from fanatical gamers to all walks of life, putting everyday people on their path to greatness and gaming mastery and Call of Duty on track to the two biggest launches in entertainment history.48
Likewise Nike salutes everyday athletes and offers inner inspiration, launching the “Find Your Greatness” campaign in 2012 to coincide with the summer Olympics. The centerpiece was a commercial—breaking first on digital channels and social media and then on television in 25 countries—that showed everyday athletes across the globe striving to excel at their sport on their own terms. In another commercial, a jogger seen approaching from the distance is gradually revealed to be not an elite athlete but an overweight twelve-year-old boy determinedly struggling alone down a country road. The voiceover refutes the idea that “greatness is a gift reserved for a chosen few,” and instead affirms that “we’re all capable of it.” The campaign is supported by a global Twitter-promoted hashtag, #findgreatness, to help spark conversation around how athletes everywhere can find their own defining moments in sport, and a digital ecosystem that enables over 8.5 million global members to gauge their performance, share their success stories, and motivate themselves and others to do more to achieve their goals.
By establishing deep empathy, Nike’s “Find Your Greatness” campaign quickly led the Viral Chart, capturing the spirit of the competition as well as 4.5 million views during the first week of the London games. It beat out its competitor Adidas, whose “Take the Stage” campaign accumulated 2.9 million views during that same week. What makes this particularly impressive is that Nike lacked the benefit of sponsorship, since Adidas had exclusive marketing rights within the UK as an Olympic partner, having spent £100 million on its Olympic marketing in the previous four years. During the campaigns, a large-scale online survey indicated that 37 percent of US consumers identified Nike as an Olympic sponsor as compared to only 24 percent for Adidas, the real sponsor.49
Brand relationships are like personal relationships: after a while you really do start to look like each other. The power and pervasiveness of this process of brain looping and body mirroring is illustrated by a remarkable example. Couples who live happily together in a continual state of emotional alignment come to actually resemble each other, resulting from the parallel sculpting of facial muscles over years of conditioning, reinforced by their shared emotions and similar expressions. They actually mold the same ridges and form similar wrinkles, furrows, and folds as they smile or frown in empathetic accordance. Studies have revealed that the happier couples are, the greater their facial similarity.50
But in reality many consumers feel that something is missing in their daily lives. They feel underappreciated and often imprisoned by the routine of their mundane lives, leading them to unconsciously seek the greater emotional connection that they feel is missing. Brand allegiances have become the modern expressions and choices that appeal to this hidden desire for connections. Consumers see brands they love as reflections of the secret strengths they hope to nurture and fully realize.
This art metaphor of finding inner beauty and desires serves well to guide not only our relationship to others but also our relationship to brands. The questions marketers need to ask are, How can we bring out the ideal self in our customers? and How can we go beyond a transactional state of explicit financial exchange to a related state of implicit emotional exchange and self-realization? Amazon.com has the goal of becoming the most customer-centric company in history. Their business model can be viewed not only as saving time and money, but also as one that anticipates the needs of their customers, much in the way friends in deep rapport finish each other’s sentences. The benefit to consumers is as much about discovery of an idealized version of themselves as it is about low prices and convenient service. Amazon gives people tools to create their ideal experience and their ideal self, such as the “Amazon Betterizer” that lets customers fine-tune preferences by “liking” products and then matching their tastes. The role of marketing is not converting customers or conquering competitive owners, but rather sculpting and shaping dynamic relationships by tapping into the inner desires and secret strengths of people’s optimal selves. It’s not about changing who they are, but rather recognizing who they are.
In 2004 Dove launched the highly successful Campaign for Real Beauty using real women, not models, to advertise its firming cream. The campaign featured average women in an effort to offset the stereotypically thin and impossibly flawless models conventionally used to advertise cosmetics. In 2006 the campaign won the Grand Effie award, taking top honors for advertising effectiveness that year. As Ty Montague, who chaired the Grand Effie judging panel, commented, “The Dove campaign was . . . rooted in a powerful human and cultural insight: that beauty has heretofore been defined by the media and is actually defined much differently by real women.”51 Dove tapped into the inner beauty within every woman, and it paid big dividends, making women feel not only good about themselves but also really good about Dove.
To add to the campaign, Dove released a Real Beauty viral video, regarded as one of the top ten best social media efforts. The piece demonstrated through time-lapse videography how an ordinary girl can be transformed into a supermodel through the falsifying magic of hairstyling, makeup, and photo retouching. The video tapped into all women’s insecurities and feelings of inadequacy; it helped them feel better about themselves by showing them how impossibly beautiful models are, in fact, distortions and not reality.52
Back in the 1990s, at the ad agency JWT New York, I was responsible for account planning for what was then Warner Lambert. Included in their roster were a handful of category-leading brands, such as the pregnancy test kit E.P.T, for which JWT had created a fantastic award-winning campaign. The premise was simple, powerful, impactful, and a seminal example of the true power of “reality advertising.” In the ads, genuine couples trying to get pregnant shared the captivating moment of their discovery on camera for all to see. Unscripted live results of real-life pregnancy tests earned the brand an Addy award, but more importantly the campaign helped position E.P.T. as the category leader, securing claim to the benefit of trust where trust is everything. To this day E.P.T. remains the market leader in home pregnancy test kits.53
I believe delivering unscripted, authentic, honest and emotionally charged subject matter to consumers especially through web videos is one of the most ripe areas and opportunities for marketers in the digital age.
Marketers often speak of the need to make their messages resonate with consumers. There is now neurological evidence that effective communication actually physically resounds in the brain of the receiver, echoing the thoughts and sentiments of the communicator by inducing and shaping neurological responses. A remarkable study, led by Princeton University’s Greg Stephens, determined through fMRI brain scans that in both the communicator and listener, similar regions of the brain fired when engaged in unrehearsed, real-life story telling, leading the researchers to conclude that brain cells do synchronize during successful communication. As the study says, “The findings shown here indicate that during successful communication, speakers’ and listeners’ brains exhibit joint, temporally coupled, response patterns. Such neural coupling substantially diminishes in the absence of communication, such as when listening to an unintelligible foreign language. Moreover, more extensive speaker-listener neural couplings result in more successful communication.” The deeper the conversation, the more deeply our minds meld. In some instances, the listener’s brain patterns actually anticipate where the story is going, in deep rapport with the storyteller.54
Sometimes rapport is as simple as closely imitating your customers. Research by a Dutch psychologist showed that waitresses who mirrored their customers yielded 140 percent larger tips. “Mimicry creates bonds between people—it induces a sense of ‘we-ness,’” says Rick van Baaren of the University of Nijmegen.55 The findings lend credibility to the notion that people are more comfortable with those who share their behaviors, and that they are often unable to consciously notice when they are being imitated. Without their awareness, those customers that had been mimicked believed that they had better service.56 By being in sync with someone, you implicitly demonstrate that you understand and agree with him or her. For service representatives this may mean it’s a good idea to repeat and paraphrase your customers’ statements to demonstrate that you really heard them and are truly listening.
It may sound trite but it is too often ignored, if you really want to open a dialogue that creates incredibly loyal customers . . . understand them first, treat them as you would people for whom you genuinely care, and mirror their beliefs and behavior. We have a huge sign that hangs on a wall of Deutsch LA that reads “Care the Most.” It is a piece of art created by our former co-CEO and chief creative officer, Eric Hirshberg, and it was his encapsulation of our working philosophy. Words to live by—in business and in life. For marketers who have gone astray, this is perhaps better stated as “Give a shit, don’t be full of it.”
Keep it real. The age of access and transparency is upon us. Now everyone has access to information about your business and access to an audience to talk about your product. Because of this, truth and trust are today’s table stakes. Marketers need to be more authentic and honest in behavior and communications across all media. This doesn’t mean advertising needs to be realistic in a literal sense, but it must ring true. We know the Energizer bunny doesn’t really go forever, but we still can believe its batteries last the longest.
Trust in the digital age is becoming more difficult to earn as more marketers jump into the fray of social media, seeking to control and contrive the conversation in their favor. Company representatives may pollute the blogosphere, posing as consumers in support of brands or practicing “like-gating” by offering access to certain content only if prospects “like” their brand, in an attempt to generate more Facebook fans, or even setting up webadvertorials that pretend to be authentic news sites, complete with artificial commentary. But efforts to this end can backfire as people see through the deceptions and are preprogrammed to retaliate or warn their friends.
According to a survey by the public relations firm Edelman, there has been a decline in trust in recent years for word of mouth. The number of those who perceive their peers or friends as credible sources about companies declined by almost half, from 45 percent in 2008 to 25 percent in 2010.57 Conversely, trust in CEOs, who have been trotted out to comfort concerned consumers, has increased. For example, GM’s new leader, Ed Whitacre, oversaw the company’s biggest year-over-year increase, from 17 percent in 2009 to 26 percent in 2010. Companies can’t simply hide behind well-crafted social media campaigns. They need to use this technology for greater transparency from within.58
Be responsive. As the digital age obviates the need for live interactions, gaining trust becomes more of a challenge. Person-to-person interactions carry benefits (such as facial expressions and gestures) that facilitate the manner in which humans typically generate trust. Have you ever made a joke in an email that didn’t go over well because the recipient couldn’t discern your banter or sarcasm (even with the addition of your sadly inadequate smiley face)?
Judy Olson, a professor of information and computer sciences, has been researching the essentials of building trust online. Her findings are steeped in a fundamental truth in psychology: People quickly pass judgment when given incomplete information, or when it appears that competence or reputation is lacking. They construct whole profiles from limited information about someone else’s personality. Psychologists have found that when we make a mistake, we are more prone to blame it on situational circumstances, and when someone else makes a mistake, we are more apt to blame their personality, quickly ascribing value judgments such as uncaring, irresponsible, or selfish.59
In the absence of trust indicators like voice intonation, emotional expression, and body language in the text-based messages that predominate online, Olson has found that research participants default to speed of response as a key marker of trustworthiness. Marketers who act quickly are more trusted, even if the fast response informs consumers that they’re simply looking into the matter at hand and will get back to them soon. For example, when filmmaker Kevin Smith sent a series of agitated tweets to his 1.6 million followers after being kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight for being “too fat,” Southwest jumped quickly onto the thread, helping to deescalate the spread of criticism and diminish the anger of an influential consumer, tweeting several responses such as “I’ve read the tweets all night from @thatkevinsmith—He’ll be getting a call at home from our Customer Relations VP tonight.” And “@thatkevinsmith—Again, I’m very sorry for the experience you had tonight. Please let me know if there is anything else I can do.”60
Another way to gain trust over the Internet is to use video, which provides the opportunity for more empathic communication by adding gesture and inflection. Domino’s CEO Patrick Doyle demonstrated that when he went before the camera to promptly apologize and display his sense of frustration, urgency, and accountability in responding to an infamous YouTube prank in which an employee uploaded a video showing another employee spraying snot on food, sticking cheese up his nose, and passing gas on a slice of salami before placing it on a sandwich he was assembling for delivery. Immediately seeing and hearing the sincerity of Doyle’s pleas helped consumers gauge his trustworthiness and offer Domino’s forgiveness.61
Make them laugh. Science is also explaining the prevalence of humor in advertising as a tool to bond consumers to brands. According to the neuroscientist Robert Provine, laughter is not really primarily about humor but rather social relationships, as it tends to disappear when there is no audience. It is a signal we send to other people that synchronizes the brains of speaker and listener toward greater emotional attunement, the hallmark of successful communication. The evidence suggests that laughter is an innate, preprogrammed, cross-cultural behavior that is triggered unconsciously, which is why it is so hard to fake real laughter.62
In essence, laughter is a lot like human bonding communication. It is akin to saying, “I like you,” or “I want you to like me.” Evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar says that belly laughing may have worked like “grooming at a distance” for early ancestors, allowing them to maintain bonds within larger groups than their primate peers could.63 Laughter also functions to release tension and oxytocin, firing the trust circuits to help us attract mates or seek approval from those of higher status, which explains why partners in love laugh so often, and why everyone laughs when the boss intimates the slightest hint of a joke.64 On top of all that, laughter is contagious, causing others to share in the connection automatically and unconsciously.65 This also explains why television shows have been using canned laughter for over a half a century, unwittingly bonding viewers to the show and convincing them that the show is actually entertaining.66
So when marketers scoff at ad people who try to insert their silly little jokes into commercials, bear in mind the power of triggering laughter, a force that bonds consumers to brands through the mediating variable of advertising. Funny ads are more likable, and ad likability has been identified as one of the single best predictors of advertising success according to the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) Copy Research Validity Project.67
Reduce frustration. Marketers need to discover ways to employ technology to their advantage in identifying and responding to the purchase barriers of heightened anxiety and negative emotions. For instance, some call centers now use voice stress monitoring to analyze the acoustic indicators of stress (voice pitch and intensity) so that stressed-out callers can quickly be routed to (hopefully) understanding agents. If you really want to build real trust, don’t reserve access to real humans as a luxury for the select few.68
Incidentally, some English-speaking call centers in India rename their agents with English names, provoking distrust instead of instilling harmony. The science suggests the incongruity of this practice may exacerbate suspicion if the caller believes that Sanjay is not really Roger. When in doubt, err on the side of transparency and honesty.
Google demonstrates the power of respecting consumers by recognizing that the reason people launch Google is to get the job done quickly and efficiently. They have focused their energies on building the best search engine, and through the use of white space that lets you and the playfully inviting logo breathe easy, they chose not to clutter the landing page like other web portals.
Google is now looking at ways to actively increase that empathy by identifying behavioral hints that suggest irritation arising from search difficulty. They discovered that in addition to sighing and biting their nails, users’ key identifiers of stress when searching for information include “typing their inquiry as a natural language question, spending a long time staring at a results page, or completely changing their approach to the task.” Google believes that such triggers, when used together, can be used to build a model that one day will make it possible for computers to detect real-time frustration.69
Create relaxation at the point of sale. Because stress and anxiety reduce oxytocin, which promotes trust and receptivity, heightened states of arousal can actually inhibit purchase behavior, which is why marketers are better advised not to stir consumers into a buying frenzy when they are reaching for their wallet.70 For example, high-end car dealerships take great strides to make the dealer experience feel comfortable and relaxing, creating living-room-like waiting rooms with plush couches and luxury amenities to facilitate a lowkey sales process. When Infiniti cars were first launched, the showrooms included “contemplation zones,” so that buyers could take a moment to pause, greatly reducing the effect of the high-pressure sales tactics often associated with car dealerships. Similarly, retailers may want to think twice about letting shoppers watch television as they wait, since television content is ripe with excitatory triggers like news sensationalism and movie violence.71
When selecting music for retail environments, decision makers should choose music that is familiar and soothing, enhancing the calming effect so that customers’ attentions are redirected to future benefits and not to short-term costs. Researchers have found that slow music can increase sales by as much as 38 percent by pacing shoppers to languidly stroll through aisles rather than rush out of the store empty-handed.72 Psychologists have even found that certain colors like red, orange, and yellow encourage excitement while other colors like blue, green, and violet tend to relax, opening up our minds and our purse strings.73
Be consistent. We gravitate to the familiar, which is why the more a company varies their branding elements, from advertising to points of purchase, the more social distance they will create with customers. Marketers need to behave more consistently by tying together campaign elements into one clearly identifiable brand appearance. While not a new idea, it remains a sentiment that needs to extend across all business practices and is still a time-tested strategy for building rapport through consistent recognition.
The fact of the matter remains: We live our lives in patterns and we find meaning in pattern recognition. The more routine, identical, and scalable your business practices are, the more recognizable the pattern and the more you magnify the effect of that familiarity. And when advertising your brand, choose a tightly knit campaign, not a series of ad-hoc shiny objects that your agency sells you. Remember: You will tire of the work long before consumers will. As the Australian psychologist and social researcher Hugh Mackay puts it: “Although we love the idea of choice—our culture almost worships it—we seek refuge in the familiar and the comfortable.”74
Add a twist to the familiar. Because we are programmed to pay attention to what is different but we move toward the familiar, adding a twist to a familiar idea is a great way to gain attention and receptivity. This is why we often enjoy hearing the remix version of a popular song and like seeing a good ad parody, or why there is so much copy-cat advertising. But, much as it is with the remix or the ad, make sure that the sequel is at least as good or better, or it will likely backfire. No one likes a rip-off artist or a cheater.