Earlier this week I wrote about pro wrestling and respecting the audience by not telling them things they already know. This respects your audience, recognizing their subject experience and knowledge, and puts the focus back on the “product,” which is ALSO an experience. For wrestling, the experience is an agreement to suspend disbelief. Anything that challenges that agreement (and, really, anything that doesn’t originate from that knowledge) is a failure of audience analysis and is, essentially, expectancy violation.
When confronted with a violation of ourselves expectations we try to remedy the situation. For promoters they have nothing to worry about! Getting you to pay for a ticket was the main concern. But for the audience the response to unfulfilled promises or embarrassingly poor storytelling is our old friend guilt/shame. On two levels, even! We feel embarrassed for having genuine expectations for something “fake,” and-because wrestling is a repeat offender-we feel guilty for getting our hopes up again.
If we can avoid that whole mess by simply respecting our audience, meeting our expectations, and meticulously crafting the experiences we provide…then we should!
My whole point here is that a curated experience shows tremendous care and respect for your audience. Even more so than pitching at their pain points. We should be connecting a product to a feeling/experience and then delivering that same (or a very close) feeling/experience whenever we interact with our audience. Notice how this feels like a win-win? That’s because it’s persuasion at a deeper level. We know experiential memories are the most vivid. Why not strive for a positive, vivid connect to an audience? That’s…like…literally the whole point!
Here’s an ad (spot? project?) from Dove. Only a couple months old and already over 2 million views.
This campaign (initiative?) has fascinated me for a long time. For a while, I didn’t get it. Not in the sense of content, that’s always been positive and inviting. But for me it was strange to watch these great, branded films that basically tell your customers they don’t need your products.
But think about the war on women’s self esteem. Positive body image and encouraging self-talk have been commodified. It’s also not a coincidence that nearly all mass shooters have demonstrable streaks of misogyny, but that’s a whole different topic.
My point is, what is more respectful when you sell cosmetics? To advertise the pain points, or to advertise the actual solution. Dove has done a great job of connecting their brand to progressive, positive feelings. The ad I posted above continues that tradition, but also does a fantastic job of creating a shared experience with the participants and the audience. I won’t spoil it, but it’s genuine and edited brilliantly. It even leads to a conversation afterwards!
It’s not perfect, but it does a great job exemplifying how experience is so valuable in branding, marketing, and communication in general.
You don’t have to pitch your target audience into buying. You also don’t have to tell them how cool or clever you are. Just keep your end of the bargain, figure out how you make lives better, and give them an experience that reminds them of that with every interaction.
Easy!
-cph
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