In his youth, futurist Roy R. Anderson believed that truth alone — when well argued — would convert others to his viewpoint. If his was indeed the best solution, than by force of sheer logic others should agree and follow his advice, putting thought into action.
Many of us have shared this misconception at some point in our lives. Frequently, we have been disabused of it abruptly and with some damage to our egos and careers. The challenge of changing minds has led strategic planner Pierre Wack of Royal Dutch/Shell to rank it as his No. 1 task: “The job of the strategic planner,” he says, “is to change the picture of reality in the head of the CEO.”(Emphasis added.)We’re all familiar with strong-minded managers; we’ve worked for them. Or are them. But the term “corporate culture” — the idea that organizations hold a collective picture of reality — is still a concept with implications we have only recently begun to explore. The CEO we wish to influence may have shaped the culture (as did the elder Watson at IBM, the younger Henry at Ford Motor) or he may merely embody it. Either way it’s there.Today, it may be the most powerful reason that advertising agencies should exist. And the best explanation of why some are better than others.And as Anderson found during his career at Allstate, facts and logic alone are not enough. They are usually necessary, but not often sufficient. Because to sell our ideas, and your products, we must overcome fixed perceptions of reality that all-too-often have little to do with either.To attest that this is no new thought, the quote below is from Aristotle’s Rhetoric. But more contemporaneously, sales training aimed at enabling us to overcome objections does only half the job. Thus, it leaves us frustrated and resentful as we are figuratively tossed out on our ear once again by the big customer whose order we crave. We counter every objection, but he doesn’t buy. And we wonder, Why?”One who attempts to move people to thought or action must concern himself with their emotions. If he touches only their minds, he is unlikely to move them to action or to change of mind — the motivations of which lie deep in the realm of the passions.”
AristotleThe answer lies in the passions, or what we call subjections. Here’s a short list that will show you what we mean:OBJECTIONSPrice
Delivery
Service
Quality
Performance
SUBJECTIONSTriviality
Image
Foreignness (to our experience)
Risk
AestheticsFacts and logic can overcome objections. But only creativity, which speaks to inner needs, can overcome subjections; for example, the concern that a decision may entail more risk than the corporate culture will forgive if the plan fails.As Mike Sloan, a Miami, Florida agency founder says, “Good ads take one of two approaches: an exercise in persuasive logic you can’t ignore. Or an exercise in charm so likable you want to buy the product or service…Great ads are made of superb logic and great charm.”Logic alone might be enough, were it not for the passions we have spoken of that must be charmed.Business relationships are based on utility. If we can be of use, we may be able to form the bond that cements a sale and makes a customer. If we’re of no use, all is lost right from the beginning.Second, business relationships must be characterized by trust. No matter how many contracts are drawn, they ultimately prosper or wane based on the mutually held conviction that the parties will do — not only as they’ve promised formally — but all that their role implies. It is the understanding of this implied obligation, and the grit to meet it always, that separates a trusted business partner from a mere vendor.A third vital element is energy. We trust and rely on those whom we believe to be most active in pursuit of our goals (and protective of our interests). Energy (the ninth sales call) is perhaps the most underrated single element in successful businesses.Finally — and by now almost minor in its role — is advantage (the objective elements of quality, price, performance, service, delivery and the like). This element of business relationships is what we all know best from training and experience. It is what we once thought, perhaps, was sufficient. It is, in reality, fourth in long-term importance, as technology continues to undercut its most essential parameter — time.Advantages once held for product life-cycles that spanned decades now disappear in months. (Look what happened with video games and VisiCalc!) Sophisticated marketers increasingly understand that the “technology game” varies little from product to product and that time is on the side of the lowest-cost providers.But IBM survives and quite nicely, thank you. Not because Big Blue makes the best, most powerful, fastest or cheapest computer. But because the company demonstrates a nearly- amazing capacity to deal successfully with such a wide range of subjections, and satisfy the demands of almost every corporate culture.How do we get there from here?
An honest answer: we know the way but we’ve never been there. In our defense few have, because the new paths are only now being blazed. Industrial advertising is often considered a sort of commercial analogue to bailing a boat — do just enough of it to avoid sinking. In this environment recommending that a client do more of it seems utterly self-serving and irresponsible.Yet advertising does not exist to prevent disaster, but to create prosperity. “We are in the business of changing things,” Paul Harper said. “We, as advertising men and women, are the great energizers of this marketplace.”Indeed, all advertising exists to energize the marketplace, and thereby contribute to increased sales and profits. As such, it is an integral part of selling.In fact, as far back as 1905 it was described as “salesmanship on paper.” There has never been a better definition.The truth is that selling is closer to the nub of things than even many of its advocates like to admit. Like protein and beauty, it satisfies real needs. Like hunger and aesthetics, it is a force beyond the control of politicians and philosophers.”Nothing is so powerful as an insight into human nature…what compulsions drive a man, what instincts dominate his action…if you know these things about man you can touch him at the core of his being.” — Bill BernbachThe marketplace is a Rorschach of human instincts. Chaos is both its limitation and its appeal. Diamonds! Or are they rhinestones? Or cut glass? Whatever, they sparkle in the sun, shrouded by the dust stirred by avid profiteers, indolent browsers, the craven, the hopeful, the young with their dreams, the old people to whom every layered display of goods for sale is both validation of a life’s ambitions, and unalloyed rebuke for all its failures.So the new paths we have spoken of evoke the past as they point to the future. For as technological parity returns us to a focus on the human psychology of salesmanship, it is the utility, and trust, and energy of honest businessmen that will provide the ultimate advantage. And these attributes — based on a new and far more profound analysis of the customer’s real needs and how they are affected by the culture in which he operates — must be conveyed with clarity, impact, and conviction.Conveyed, how?
By advertising.
By advertising that goes far beyond specifications. Far beyond its traditional role of creating awareness of a brand, and some comprehension of its features and benefits. Tomorrow’s advertising will do these things, yes, but almost incidentally.
The minor significance of the old trilogy — awareness, comprehension, and preference — has been demonstrated for years by the Ebbinghaus Curve of Forgetting, which falls off in insolent mimicry of the upward-bound course of these values under the positive pressure of advertising.Yes, what people learn they forget. The more ephemeral the knowledge, the more rapid its loss, and in an age of technological parity most knowledge seems, if not trivial, certainly less than crucial. We are not advertising nylon, or neoprene, or the transistor. We’re stuck with gradations and nuances, generic features and fragile benefits. Forgetting comes easy.So it is essential that we go beyond awareness. Success in the future will depend on opening much more than a sample case of today’s wares; it will necessitate opening up whole companies and merging cultures; of inviting the uncertain prospect in, setting him down and talking turkey.We call this process Access. A major step beyond Awareness, it conveys that you and your company are open and receptive to the needs of your clientele. It validates your utility and trustworthiness. It exemplifies the energy you devote to satisfying your customer’s needs.It overcomes the emotional objections. The end game. Partnership with your customers in a relationship marked by a depth of real rapport, ensuring that they are never likely to forget or forsake you.