Monthly Archives: August 2013

If you’ve read The Secret of Selling you’ll already know about the way in which apparently peripheral elements can have a dramatic influence on consumer behaviour. It all stems from the fact that the different areas of our brains get involved in shaping our behaviour in ways that we don’t always identify accurately. Something reaches part of the brain and triggers a response, whilst the conscious mind is busily occupied elsewhere. In much the same way that a magician uses our inability to focus on more than one thing at once to make the card disappear, we’re left oblivious to what’s happened. When it comes to advertising it’s no surprise that the same principles come in to play. What’s interesting is the way in which some very basic ‘logic’ influences just how that unconscious influence occurs, and it’s something that is very useful for anyone involved in marketing communication to know. You […]

For some reason young children often find it hard to apologise. Things get out of hand when they’re playing and the next thing you know one feels so aggrieved about something the other has done that she throws a toy at him, he reacts to this and throws six back. Both feel completely justified and, when you hear the commotion and go to sort it out both turn the tears on and appear equally upset. Often it’s impossible to work out, between the snuffles and sobs, what singular action set the chain of angry events in motion. A request for them to apologise to each other is met with fierce resistance. It’s ironic really because, later in life, we British become so apologetic that someone could stand on our foot and we would say, “I’m sorry, please would you mind not breaking my toes.” Eventually one might manage a hugely […]

I don’t own shares in the UK supermarket chain Asda (or rather their parent company Wal-Mart) but if I did I would be selling them just about now. Earlier this month Asda announced that they wanted to invoke a new era of ‘democratic consumerism’. To quote their chief executive Andy Bond this will be “the dawn of a new age where customers dictate how we do business and the products we sell.” Dictate! To facilitate this the company is setting up a massive internet based survey, so that it can regularly solicit the opinions of 18,000 customers when decisions are being taken on issues like purchasing. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m all for democracy. But Asda already has it. They choose what to do and look at the numbers of people who come through their doors and what they choose to buy when they get there. But there’s no point asking […]

Following on from last week’s article that reported on a study that had found apologising could be more beneficial than compensating customers who felt aggrieved ( it’s here if you missed it), I said I would give some pointers for a good apology. To start off with I’d like to dispel an apology myth. Few things are worse than feigned empathy. I have lost track of the number of times I’ve heard customer service staff say, “I do understand how you feel”. This demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding in the nature of human transactions. When person one is angry, adopting a passive parental style isn’t likely to appease them. If someone is sad then empathising with them is a good idea. Sadness is an emotion that stems from a past event that can’t be changed. Anger is a present time emotion. If you step on my foot my anger will cause me to […]