Issue No. 613 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features a contrarian book on the new rules of persuasion. Take my pop quiz! Plus, click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies), and click here for more book reviews. Also, read my recent review of The Power of One. Bonus! Read Ed Barrett’s color commentary in this week’s blog, "Whole Lotta Love," by Led Zeppelin, in our toe-tapping feature, Johnny Be Good.
Old Spice deodorant and men’s grooming products needed a do-over from their 1970s successful TV commercials. (Think “old!”) Their research revealed “60 percent of body wash was purchased by women, ostensibly for the men in their lives,” writes Leslie Zane, founder of a brand consulting firm rooted in behavioral science. Enter the “Keep, Stop, Add” process—and this 2010 Super Bowl commercial, “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like,” with Isaiah Amir Mustafa, the actor and former American football player. View it here.
I’m so sorry. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, your vacation is calling you—and you need a beach read, or maybe a bestseller for your mountain hideaway. But while you’re enjoying R&R, someone on your team must read this book ASAP. The Power of Instinct is a counterintuitive and contrarian deep dive into everything you’ve assumed (wrongly!) about how to sell your products, programs, services, ideas, sermons, causes, and even yourself. Must-read!
The Power of Instinct:
The New Rules of Persuasion in Business and Life
by Leslie Zane (June 18, 2024)
“This is the playbook for the next generation of marketing,” writes Leslie Zane, the founder of Triggers®, a chief marketing officer (CMO) advisory and first brand consulting firm “rooted in behavioral science.” Can a new book on marketing and persuasion be a page-turner? Yes! Here’s a pop quiz:
TRUE OR FALSE?
#1. TRUE OR FALSE? The first Harry Potter book, before being acquired by Bloomsbury, was rejected by more than 12 publishers. Bloomsbury’s chairman “passed the first chapter of the book on to a trusted beta reader—his eight-year-old daughter, Alice.” The estimated value of the franchise today: $40 billion!
#2. T or F? Why was Harry Potter (and dozens of other contrarian examples in this book) so successful? You must understand the brain: the conscious mind and the unconscious mind. The author quotes behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman and others: “…the conscious mind only accounts for roughly 5 percent of our decisions.”
#3. T or F? What do these brands… [Kohl’s, Victoria’s Secret, Sears, Kmart, JCPenney, Toys “R” Us, Circuit City, Lord & Taylor, Borders Books and Music, Kodak, and Blockbuster]… have in common? Answer: “The Core Customer Trap.” The author adds, “Companies that are laser-focused on existing customers lull themselves into believing their brand is fine as is.”
#4. T or F? “Each year, approximately two-thirds of chief marketing officers and marketing leaders report that their focus in the coming year will be on marketing their products and services to existing customers.”
#5. T or F? “If you’re not constantly replenishing your franchise with new generations of customers, your business is going to diminish in size.” And, “If you’re not scaling, you’re dying.”
#6. T or F? “Marketing departments, ad agencies, and a constellation of research and consulting firms have been built to sway audiences using rules developed back in the middle of the twentieth century, before anyone recognized how we actually make decisions.”
#7. T or F? “Brands like Walmart entirely dispel what is known as the ‘brand and product life cycle,’ a classic marketing concept immortalized in 1967 in Marketing Management…and still taught in undergraduate and graduate business programs at top universities and in major corporations.”
#8. T or F? “But like so many theories on which the old rules of marketing were based, it turns out this one is a myth as well. The life cycle concept is not only scientifically inaccurate, it also causes missed opportunities, as so-called mature brands lose out on potential investment and continued growth.”
#9. Guess! Which one of these seven brands has NOT been around for 100 years or longer? Boeing, Crayola, Ford, Kraft Foods, Harley-Davidson, The UPS Store, or Whirlpool?
In the chapter, “The Snow-Capped Mountain Effect," the author describes how Tropicana’s 2008 decision to “freshen up its brand” led to “one of the most famous package design blunders in marketing history.” (See the original classic brand above—a winner.) Another winner: “the marvelously creative ‘Slices’ ad” that Heinz ketchup used to create positive associations. (Note: “positive” and “negative associations” is a critical theme in the book.)
#10. T or F? “If you want to get the green light for a project, you can’t just put together a presentation and rely on your ability to make a rational argument. You need to think like a marketer. And that means appealing to the subconscious of the decision maker.” (True or false? Find the answer in Zane’s HBR article here.)
#11. T or F? “People don’t buy because of need or loyalty; they buy on instinct.”
#12. T or F? The marketing and sales funnel, conceived in 1898, “has been treated like gospel by every marketing, sales, and media department in the business world.” (The five stages: “awareness, interest, desire or consideration, action or conversion, and loyalty or advocacy.”) “In essence, you can skip the funnel. But you’ll never hear anyone in the marketing world admit that out loud.”
#13. T or F? Finding Growth Triggers. “…according to research by 3M, humans process images sixty thousand times faster than text.” (Example: Nike’s “swoosh.”) Leslie Zane preaches: “To find the right Growth Triggers, you want to consider stimuli that affect at least one of the five senses. If the customer can see it, hear it, touch it, taste it, or smell it, it can serve as a cognitive shortcut.” Six triggers:
• Image Triggers™
• Verbal Triggers™
• Auditory Triggers™
• Olfactory Triggers™
• Taste Triggers™
• Tactile Triggers
#14. T or F? “Relying on existing customers is a trap. You get more growth out of people who don’t buy your brand.”
#15. T or F? You’re a big fan of the Net Promoter Score (NPS), right? “The concept became widely adopted in Fortune 500 C-suites. There was only one problem—there is sparse evidence that NPS or loyalty are actually correlated to business growth.”
#16. T or F? Yikes! “Assigning different handles to different segments with different characteristics isn’t helpful. Building a bunch of profiles, whether ‘Knitting Nancy’ or ‘Jogging Joe,’ doesn’t provide useful insight when you’re trying to grow your franchise with as large an audience as possible.” Oops? Is Inside the Mind of Unchurched Harry and Mary still valid?
#17. T or F? “The most salient brands bring similar themes and associations to mind for everyone—new customers and existing ones alike. So the question you need to ask is not ‘How are our customers different?’ but ‘How are our customers alike?’”
#18. T or F? “A single brand message stifles growth; multiple messages fuel it.”
#19. T or F? The 1981 seminal marketing book, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, by Jack Trout and Al Ries, championed “presenting only one potent message about your brand” and “working with what’s in people’s minds already.” Yet Zane pushes back in her chapter, “Why Layering Beats Focusing.” She notes: “There’s only one problem…what consumers say they want and what they ultimately choose bear little relationship to each other, since their behavior is dominated by their unconscious mind.”
#20. T or F? “Marketing conditions aren’t holding your brand back; negative associations are.”
EXTRA CREDIT. What was the familiar jingle in 1984 for Folgers Mountain Grown Coffee and what was the trigger? (Hint.)
POP QUIZ ANSWERS: Email me your 20 best guesses and I'll email you the correct answers next week. Possible prize for best guesser!
To order from Amazon, click on the title for The Power of Instinct: The New Rules of Persuasion in Business and Life, by Leslie Zane. Listen on Libro (8 hours, 47 minutes). And thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy.
2) Is “power” the new power word? I’ve reviewed 16 books that include “power” in the title or subtitle. Examples: The Power of Instinct, The Power of One, by Billy Wilson, The Power of Moments, by Chip Heath & Dan Heath, and Doesn't Hurt to Ask: Using the Power of Questions to Communicate, Connect, and Persuade, by Trey Gowdy. (The last two books were books-of-the-year.)
Mastering 100 Must-Read Books - Part 15: Feeble Faith and Flabby Worship
Book #83 of 100: Soul Keeping
For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by spotlighting Book #83 in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books.
Soul Keeping:
Caring for the Most Important Part of You
by John Ortberg
Books #82 through #86 spotlight five soul-strengthening books to connect you with the God of the Universe. In the chapter, “The Soul Needs a Center,” John Ortberg confesses, “If I am always in a hurry to be somewhere else, it’s an indicator that my soul has not yet found its home.”
• Read my review.
• Order from Amazon: Soul Keeping
• Listen on Libro (6 hours, 8 minutes).
• Download the 100 Must-Read Books list (from John and Jason Pearson).
Warning: you can’t speed-read this book! I lingered slowly through this book over 17 weekends…a chapter every Saturday or Sunday morning. Whew. Good stuff. Quotable stuff. PowerPoint-worthy wisdom. And always good for a half-page read to my wife, Joanne, who also appreciates John Ortberg and Dallas Willard. Most weekends, I also read her funny stuff from this one-of-a-kind book.
Song #24 of 45: “Whole Lotta Love"
Listen to “Whole Lotta Love,” by Led Zeppelin, Song #24 of 45 in our blog series, Johnny Be Good. Read Ed Barrett’s color commentary—and learn why Led Zeppelin is his all-time favorite band. Reminder: Guest bloggers invited! More info here.
4th of July
Follow-Up
American readers may want to continue their 4th of July celebration by reading John Grisham’s page turner, The Reckoning: A Novel (2018). It’s the story of a decorated WW2 war hero who survives the Bataan Death March in the Philippines and returns to his Mississippi home and farm, there to commit an egregious crime. His lackluster defense: “I have nothing to say.” Read my review.
For more book reviews, visit the Pails in Comparison Blog.
FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024, while space remains, The Barnabas Group/San Diego is hosting John Pearson for his workshop, "The 4 Big Mistakes to Avoid With Your Nonprofit Board: How Leaders Enrich Their Ministry Results Through God-Honoring Governance." Location: Encinitas, Calif. Register here. ____________________________________
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