We’d rather see you for regular mammograms than regular chemotherapy.
Versus
One of the best cancer centers in the Mid-West.
Let’s turn the tables on cancer and have more lines like ‘I Kicked Cancer’s Ass’. Photo by kind permission of Linda Bowman who you see above.
Both lines were presented to a marketer whose brief read: ‘the best hospital for cancer care.’
But we’re not talking famous hospitals like the Cleveland Clinic, the Mayo Clinic or Indiana University Hospital.
His hospital wasn’t among widely known cancer care facilities.
Still, he went for the second headline because he said, for him, it hit the nail on the head.
It encapsulated everything his hospital hoped to be.
Yes, there’s a necessity for regular mammograms, he granted, but the headline that pressed the case for that was ominous.
He said it could scare his target audience.
So he ticked a box and eagerly moved on to the next business of the day.
That was a content assignment for his hospital’s biggest revenue maker, the heart and vascular unit. That held the greatest opportunity for profitability.
This story, related at a seminar last year, points up one fact.
An important ingredient for creating effective content can be ‘worry’.
There are more than a few marketing solutions to a brief. But why skirt the fact you have a frightening subject in cancer.
The best cancer headline still sticks with me after a ridiculously long time. I’m thinking it goes back 20-odd years or so.
It might have been done by the Martin Agency.
You have cancer. Let’s start by removing that lump in your throat.
Healthcare marketers aren’t ‘Gatoraded’ on the field like a triumphant football coach. They’re not drenched in victory that way.
But maybe they should be if they can choose a headline that can save a life.
Where did phony applause come from? Quite possibly Emperor Nero. He hired thousands to applaud and cheer his speeches.
It’s was a live-from-Moscow performance beamed in to local cinemas.
Special only begins to describe it.
It might have been on screen but that didn’t stop us wanting to applaud like mad.
As you’d guess, Bolshoi performances are not without rapturous applause.
But it wasn’t always that way
In moments of uncertainty a company founded in 1776 hired claquers.
That’s French for an organized body of professional applauders. They’re paid for their efforts.
In 16thcentury France, playwrights called on claquers.
They bought blocks of tickets to give away on the promise that there would be applause enough to sway the critics and attract audiences.
But phony applause wasn’t the only trick, you had specialists.
Rieurs, laughers, were paid to laugh loudly at punch lines.
Pleureurs, criers, were paid to sob into their handkerchiefs in moments of despair.
You also had Bisseurs. They were paid to shout ‘Bis Bis’, a request for an encore.
You might say there was as much of a performance in the audience as there was on stage.
There’s something of a digital version of this these days with video click farms.
From New York Magazine, Max Read gives us this with a link:
On some platforms, video views and app downloads can be forged in lucrative industrial counterfeiting operations. If you want a picture of what the Inversion lookslike, find a video of a click farm: hundreds of individual smartphones, arranged in rows on shelves or racks in professional-looking offices, each watching the same video or downloading the same app.
No shrug of indifference to that, is there?
Phony views and sham data … maybe it’s why P&G’s Marc Pritchard pulled back from social media.
He cut $200m in 2017.
Video click farms are enough to turn us all into pleurers … with proper tears, of course.
But for many there’s a more pressing issue. The state of content and commercials.
Too many content efforts feel drab against the promise of something bright and appealing.
Equally, for many commercials nobody’s wishing they were a split second longer than they are.
Too many of them are non-starters compared to spots from Snickers, Geico and Old Spice.
Small wonder then that trust in advertising has dropped to a record low of 25%.
This comes from Unilever CMO Keith Weed, https://bit.ly/2RrR8lA.
Of course it’s easy enough to be a pessimist, but it’s not as if we can’t apply a little reason.
Many believe we need to improve creative work.
Among the many are Google and Apple.
They’re built on creativity; their TV spots brand with an emotional intelligence.
Their commercials have an ability to put feelings into people.
More marketers could do with that.
Maybe they should stop taking advice from themselves and read something about the power of ideas and branding.
Because to motivate people you need more than algorithms.
After all, what use is gee-whiz technology if what’s delivered is crap messaging.
Nobody’s about to applaud crap messaging, are they?
As you no doubt know, bowing, Ojigi (お辞儀), plays a strong role in Japanese culture.
A plane pushes back from the gate, backing into the taxi area.
It stops so the tug can be unhitched from the nose wheel.
Nine ground crew line up shoulder to shoulder facing passengers gazing from the windows.
As one, they bow deeply to the passengers.
It’s only then the plane trundles away to the runway.
In another little scene a man enters a jewelry shop.
He takes a few minutes to view gold necklaces in an illuminated glass case.
He doesn’t buy, but on his way out he is respectfully escorted to the street by a sales assistant.
On the sidewalk the sales assistant bows deeply and thanks the browser for taking the time to look.
You’ve probably guessed this is Japan.
It’s a little different from say, Zales Diamond Store in Manhattan or Best Buy in West Hollywood.
In our part of the world we say the customer is always right.
But the Japanese say, Okyaku-sama wa kami-sama desu.
It translates as the customer is God.
More to that, instead of the word ‘customer’ the Japanese opt for ‘guest’ as it connotes deeper respect.
We’ll never be culturally akin to the Japanese in Manhattan or West Hollywood but maybe we can do better in looking after our ‘guests’ and in managing CRM.
At a time when too many marketers believe algorithms are the silver bullet, (how can that be correct?), an effective way ahead might be to concentrate harder on customers.
Maybe we should start creating more memorable customer experiences.
After all, isn’t that how to bring your ‘guests’ back and back?
Without repeat business it could be you who’ll have to bow.
Bow to the superiority of competitors who streak past you.
PS. Let’s hear from you. How are you treating customers like guests? If you’re at Ritz Carlton, no need to answer. Everyone knows you have a lock on going above and beyond.
