In 1971, Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon wrote:
“In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes.
What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”
What foresight from a man writing 50 years ago…
In September, I decided to kick off a “Learning Sprint” on marketing and advertising because it became clear to me that in a world where we’re inundated with information, winning attention has never been a more valuable skill.
Over the last four months, I spent 100+ hours reading the best books on the topic:
Here were the seven most important lessons:
1) Narrow Your Focus
“The essence of marketing is narrowing the focus. You become stronger when you reduce the scope of your operations. You can’t stand for something if you chase after everything.” ~Al Ries & Jack Trout
David Ogilvy once explained that 32% of beer-drinkers drink 80% of all beer, 23% of laxative users consume 80% of all laxatives, and 14% of gin drinkers consume 80% of all gin. The heavy users make the market. If you try to and cater to everyone (the casual & heavy consumers), you risk losing your most important customers.
Seth Godin said the most important lesson in brand marketing is to define your target audience and position every interaction to win them over.
Narrow Your Focus.
2) Serve Your Audience’s Worldview
“Argue anything for your own advantage, and people will resist to the limit. But seem unselfishly to consider your customers’ desires, and they will naturally flock to you.” ~Claude Hopkins
Success in advertising is earned by offering people something they want. To make good advertising, you must understand how your audience thinks and what they desire. You must appeal to their worldview.
As Rory Sutherland explained in his book Alchemy, “All too often, what matters is not whether an idea is true or effective, but whether it fits with the preconceptions of a dominant cabal.”
People don’t want to change their worldview, they want it to be reinforced.
3) Once a Mind is Made, It Rarely Changes
“You cannot worm your way into their mind and then slowly build up a favorable opinion over a period of time. The mind doesn’t work that way… Once they perceive you one way, that’s it... You cannot become a different person in their minds.” ~Al Ries & Jack Trout
People make decisions on almost no data and stick to those decisions regardless of information that might prove them wrong. it's why being “friend-zoned” is problematic. It’s also why rebrandings rarely work.
Ries & Trout have said that trying to change a consumer’s mind is the single most wasteful thing you can do in marketing. Once a mind is made, it rarely changes.
4) Marketing is a Battle of Perceptions
“Why do some people choose Jack Daniel’s while others choose Grand Dad or Taylor? Have they tried all three and compared the taste? Don’t make me laugh. The reality is that these three brands have different images which appeal to different kinds of people... The brand image is 90% of what the distiller has to sell.” ~David Ogilvy
The best product doesn’t always win. It’s the product (or brand) that occupies the mind of the consumer first that wins. Ogilvy said that he who dedicates his advertising to building the most sharply defined personality will earn the largest market share. (Not he who builds the best product.)
If our expectations are the engine of our perceptions and our perceptions determine our reality, then marketing is moreso a battle of perceptions, than it is of product.
5) Specificity Builds Credibility
“Impressive claims are made far more impressive by making them exact.” ~Claude Hopkins
James Webb Young, one of the best copywriters in history, once explained that every advertiser has the same problem: to be believed.
The great advertiser Claude Hopkins has countless examples where specificity earns outsized trust. Consider what Hopkins recognized as the greatest success in beer advertising history:
“One brewer pictured a plate glass room where beer was cooled in filtered air… He told how bottles were washed four times by machinery. How he went down 4,000 feet for pure water. How 1,018 experiments had been made to attain a yeast to give beer that matchless flavor. And how all the yeast was forever made from that adopted mother cell.
All claims were such as any brewer might have made. They were mere essentials in ordinary brewing. But he was the first to tell the people about them… He made the greatest success that was ever made in beer advertising.”
Specific figures and facts grounds your claims in reality. The more precise you are, the more you will earn.
Specificity builds credibility.
6) Great Stories Drive Great Outcomes
“Either you’re going to tell stories that spread, or you will become irrelevant.” ~Seth Godin
People will forget what you said, but remember how you made them feel. We pay attention when our emotions are aroused and nothing does this better than a great story.
Seth Godin shared that the harsh reality is that only remarkable products (and people) get remarked on. Boring is invisible. So, when you find a story that works, you must live that story, make it authentic, and subject it to scrutiny.
Great stories drive great outcomes.
7) Consistent Quality Beats Inconsistent Excellence
“People don’t choose Brand A over Brand B because they think Brand A is better, but because they are more certain it is good.” ~Rory Sutherland
People’s aversion towards uncertainty explains a lot of unintuitive behavior (in investing, in war, in dating, etc.). It explains a great deal in marketing too.
In the car market, Honda can offer a worse product than its competitors but still win the dominant position. Ogilvy once explained that, “If the consumer feels certain that your product is good and feels uncertain about your competitor’s, he will buy yours.”
If you can provide consistency, security, and reliability (in your marketing, story-telling, product quality, customer experience, etc.), you will be rewarded.
Consistent quality beats inconsistent excellence.
