Popular wisdom says you need to build a trusted brand in order to get your customers to spend. In his new book, “Secret Sauce: How to Pack Your Messages With Persuasive Punch,” marketing consultant Harry Mills relays the story of Taiwanese computer maker ASUS, a relative unknown that reached the No. 3 position in worldwide tablet shipments in 2013 with no initial brand awareness and without investing heavily in its brand.
When ASUS launched the Eee PC netbook in 2007 at an amazing retail price of $399, consumers could easily access the strong reviews it received on trusted tech websites such as CNET and gadget.com. “We trust information sources from friends, acquaintances and review sites much more than marketer-generated information,” writes Mills. He offers these insights on generating credibility in your marketing:
Credible messages are transparent. Advertising agency Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB) used the “law of candor” to create a remarkably successful campaign for Volkswagen, starting in 1960. Many of the advertisements took the novel approach of knocking the product. Headlines included, “Ugly is only skin deep” and “The 1970 VW will stay ugly longer.”
Credible messages are verifiable. In the 1960s, “Think small” was a brave call in an age of gas guzzling cars. In 2010, Volkswagen launched a global “think blue” campaign with the goal of becoming the world’s most environmentally sustainable car manufacturer. VW promoted its “clean diesel” technology, which promised high mileage and low emissions without sacrificing performance.
“VW was lying,” Mills states. “In September 2015, Volkswagen admitted it had installed software in 11 million diesel cars to cheat emissions tests, allowing cars to “spew far more deadly pollutants than regulations allowed.” Consumers responded with outrage. VW’s shares slumped. Martin Winterkorn, Volkswagen’s chief executive, and other high senior executives were forced to resign.
Verifiable evidence is persuasive. Milles reports that an analysis of advertising which looked at multiple studies in which some arguments provided sources and others did not found the inclusion of sources led to higher persuasion in 17 of the 23 comparisons and it increased ratings of credibility in seven of 11 comparisons.
“If you make a fact-based claim, you should be able to support the facts by providing the source of evidence. When facts are verifiable, people become confident even if they don’t bother to check your claim.”
