I remember working at Doyle Dane Bernbach, where the founder (Bill Bernbach) had a favorite expression, “Nothing will kill a bad product faster than great advertising! People will try it once and then you’re out of business.” How true, especially today when bad news can go viral.
A few decades back, General Mills introduced Wackies cereal with bananas. It was a great concept except the product tasted like brittle wood chips. One kid said, “I begged my mother and father to get some Wackies because I liked the commercial. Then I tasted it and man it was nasty! The box never got finished and my mother finally threw it out.”
Marketers should know that Tufts neuroscientists report we’ve developed a new brain function to scan the internet faster. They call us “skimmers.” Skimmers scan through information so quickly that marketers won’t get noticed unless they have a headline message that resonates instantly. We’ve found that pre-tested “trigger” words help a lot in getting noticed, downloaded, and shared. But make sure you research the words because shooting from the hip doesn’t work. And make sure you include the emotional aspect of the purchase, because feelings have increased 43% in decision making importance (since 1992).
We work with agencies, social media firms and clients to discover the most powerful emotional “trigger” words for their brands. Check out our new website at wallacewashburn.com or contact me.
If you’re not getting satisfactory results from your current messaging, consider testing your messaging in one of our Pilot Research studies. We’ll find out if you’re using the most powerful “trigger” word messaging. It’s fast and cost effective, utilizing a customer survey of 10 questions, primarily emotional/conversational. We analyze customer verbatim feedback using our proven EmotiveSCAN software coupled with in-depth human analysis.
We work with agencies, social media firms and clients to discover each individual brand’s most powerful emotional “trigger” word messaging. Check out our cool videos at wallacewashburn.com and if you have questions, contact me at pkimballwallace@gmail.com.
