Powerful people make better liars. I wonder if the same goes for organisations?
Product Marketing is all about presenting the benefits of the product to the intended user. We do so as positively as possible: we want the product to sell. So we emphasise those benefits, play down the negatives. Particularly when marketing new products, perhaps ones that have yet to come to market, the line between fact and fiction can become a little blurred.
Some companies undeniably step straight over that line and lie. That poses all sorts of problems for the rest of us, either as marketers in the same market or simply as consumers. How can we spot that they’ve crossed it? How can we differentiate good product marketing from big, fat, porky marketing?
Professor Dana Carney, assistant professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business conducted research into lying using two groups of people: bosses and employees. As reported in the HBR this month, they were asked (by a computer) to steal a $100 bill and told that if they could convince an interviewer that they had not taken it: keep it. Professor Carney measured speed of speech, shoulder shrugs, the level of stress hormone in their saliva, how hard they press their lips together and how much their pupils dilate.
How to entertain your trade show stand visitors and completely fail to deliver your message.
I like to use magic, conjuring, sleight of hand, plain old fashioned tricker as a metaphor for what so many of us do in film and television production. We tell stories in such a convincing way that our audiences’ skepticism is temporarily suspended and they believe in our fantasy world.
But is magic a good way to communicate your marketing message?
effectivus is in Vegas this week (again) at the National Association of Broadcasters annual jolly; lots of fat old television engineers complaining bitterly at the spotty young geeks who’ve nipped in and taken over their industry. If you’re wondering, effectivus fits into both categories.
A seasonal cautionary fairytale for technology companies in five lessons
The Technology Trigger
Percy stumbled into the kitchen at Peddle and Pant Cycles. He was furious. He’d been working on the green initiative for months and the latest prototypes had been no more successful than the first. He needed a caffeine fix.
As he wrestled with the Calzoncini Espresso machine, Henry from Sales sauntered in “ahh, coffee” he said.
“Damn thing” said Percy “its ‘start clean cycle’ light keeps flashing, but when I do that it produces error 47 which, according to the manual, means ‘the machine is too furred up to start the clean cycle’. Pants!”.
“I thought you guys in R&D would be up to handling a coffee machine” chortled Henry “So how are things going? We’re desperate for something new.”
“Well,” began Percy “I have been working on this idea…”
The act of planting a graphic image in someone else’s mind without warning
Giving a good demo is more than taking the audience through the features
All effectivus posts