Old Spice figured out who holds the purchasing power in their target market's household. In previous campaigns, they targeted end users' (men's) awareness and liking. Look at their old ad with the shouting macho dude that would annoy maybe 200% of women. However, men may actually like the fact that women don't like the ad, with this logic: Because women don't like it, it is automatically manly. Who said we're not shallow.

Now to focus on a better outcome - selling their product - in the newer campaign, they are targeting and winning the buyers' preference by appealing to women, and through women, to their men.

This ad has multiple messages. What women doesn't want a man to bake them a cake in the dream kitchen he built with his own hands??  But the message doesn't negatively affect men's awareness or liking of Old Spice. Men appreciate that Old Spice understands their "situation" - another way to sell manliness.

As marketers, we know Old Spice probably conducted copious amounts of research to intimately get to know and understand their customers and the the purchase decision process. To Joe Bro, it feels like he just had a "manversation" consisting of mostly grunts, nods, and maybe a fist bump with Old Spice. Then the product he (and she) wants magically appears in his bathtub. Cha-ching.

Recently, NPR told the story of a Texas hospital that is trying to use the "speed dating" concept to win new patients and bolster physician loyalty as well. Selected doctors and prospective patients pair off and chat for five minutes, then rotate into the next conversation. Check out the hospital's promotional video:

Clever idea. Attention-getting tactic. Yet there are numerous questions to consider... Will most physicians participate? Will referrals to the hospital increase? How scalable is it?  

And the bottom line question is: Can a good physician-patient match be made through a brief, patient-driven conversation? A Medscape poll shows that only 21% of physicians feel "speed dating" would be effective for their practice.

The key is asking the right questions, that is, questions that are predictive of a good doctor-patient match. And that is a work in progress.

How do we persuade people to do or buy things? In the health and medical field, we usually rely on educating them. This is the "direct" path to persuasion. Give lots of detailed information, the "customer" will scrutinize it, think hard about it, and come to a rational conclusion. Right? Wrong.

Years of research has shown that this approach usually doesn't work very well. For most people most of the time, the "indirect" path to persuasion is far more effective. On the indirect path, people are influenced by things like who the spokesperson is and what feelings are being conveyed, rather than the rational argument. They are not thinking deeply. Instead, they are relying on, say the credibility of the spokesperson, as a shortcut to making a quick decision. The upside is people are engaged. The downside is that the persuasion that does result may be shorter lived. 

I see the real win as what I would call involvement conversion. Use the indirect path to get people initially interested. Then once they are "in the door" so to speak, their positive experience should convert them to care more deeply and find the personal relevance in what you are selling. Just make it worth their while.

Note: I know, I know. There's a popular business book called the 5 Paths to Persuasion. The two paths I am touting are fundamentally based on whether people personally connect with your message or not. Think about what path you take when faced with a barrage of communications.

Most of us assume customers want a lot of choices. Nobody likes being told what to do. Right? Maybe not.

In the book The Paradox Of Choice: Why More is Less, psychologist Barry Schwartz tells the story of going into the Gap to buy a pair of jeans. The salesperson asks him what kind of jeans- slim fit, easy fit, relaxed fit, or baggy? Stonewashed, acid-washed, or distressed? Button fly or zipper? On and on the choices grew. He replies - a bit confused - jeans, just regular jeans like he always buys. Then he started worrying, well maybe it matters and should he try on 14 different styles? The myriad of choices created an uncomfortable "need."

In our consulting work helping companies really understand what their customers want, need, and value, we invariably find that too many choices is just as bad as no choices. For example, when working with our federal Medicare agency (CMS) to investigate what choices seniors want in selecting health insurance plans, we found they tended to want two or three good choices. And they really valued a trusted resource that could present them with the best two or three options for their situation.

Therein lies the marketing opportunity. Sometimes people are overwhelmed by choices. They want to be told what to do, especially in a domain where they have little or no expertise, like say, evaluating healthcare systems. So step up and make it easier for your customers by reducing their number of choices. Call it "peace of mind" marketing.

P.S. This is where my marketing pseudonym "Les S. Moore" comes into play.

We're just wrapping up a marketing study with primary care doctors across the country to test the appeal of potential new medical equipment and services. I am constantly hearing doctors lamenting the condition of healthcare in America, and very clearly saying what they do everyday - how they treat patients - is directly affected by what is r eimbursable by insurance and what kind of coverage a patient has. It is both understandable and frightening. 

In the midst of healthcare reform, are you and I willing to sacrifice our benefits for the greater good?  As the cartoon suggests, many lawmakers have a double standard and would not. Wouldn't that be like a marketer representing a product they don't believe in? Not a good thing. And it always shows. Integrity: Don't leave home without it!

There's a new website business called Uplaya by Music Intelligence Solutions with "Hit Song Science" software that predicts what songs will be big hits, then helps with promotion and distribution. The company's CEO sees the algorythm that looks for common patterns of rhythm, harmony, chord progression, length and lyrics, as a way to democratize the music industry, a process he likens to an electronic American ldol (listen to today's NPR interview).

This reminds me of popular singer/songwriter named Michael Bolton who may be best known for singing well-known covers in the 1980s & 90s. Turns out most of his work is original and quite popular, but he was often criticized as a "formula" singer, without much originality. So too are some songwriters critical - or fearful - of an algorythm shaping artistry. It would eliminate innovation and narrow the range of creative possibilities they say. Should artists be driven by what their fans want? Or just sing, write, paint, or create what is in their hearts? My belief is there is a balance. By definition, significant innovation - whether for new products, services, or songs - is something that is hard to evaluate using existing mental templates.

I made the point this way in a Global Marketing seminar I taught last week: Imagine 30 years ago (for a few students, this would have been before they were born... hmm.), someone would have you shown you a small flat box that had a little TV screen and a typewriter built in. They explained to you that with no wires, this "thing" would let you write letters and use spreadsheets, instantly send notes to people anywhere in the world, and just as quickly tap into a worldwide encyclopedia, company directory and shopping network. Could you have even conceived of it? Sure, predictive software is great. And there will always be a place for unscripted creativity that breaks the bounds of what is now known and accepted as good.