Lists
Lists are important. They remind us of the stuff we too often forget. Lists help us remember to buy eggs at the grocery store or to pick up the dry cleaning on Thursday.
Unfortunately in this multitasking do it yesterday world, we need lists to aid our memory. Our brains are not wired to remember so much information. Lists are boring, yet essential in our every day lives.
Yet, marketers are now using lists as a marketing tactic. Instead of focusing in on a specific quality of a product or service that can make an emotional appeal to a consumer, marketers would rather rattle off a list of features in the hopes that one feature will strike a consumer to purchase. Throw enough spaghetti against the wall and some of it is sure to stick.
The thought is thus: Why choose one feature on this product when we can advertise eight? Surely more is better.
It’s not. More does not connect. More is not memorable. More equals more noise and less focus.
Is this the strategy you want for your product or service?
Imagine if your advertising was a quarterback? which QB would you rather have? The QB who throws the ball down field in the general vicinity of a wide receiver or the QB who uses pinpoint accuracy to find his receiver.
Sure by zeroing in on a specific target, a QB will throw an interception and a marketer will make a mistake and pick the wrong attribute to motivate consumers. But fear should not guide your decision.
In these tough times, more and more marketers are opting for fear instead of innovation. By basing your decisions on fear, everything becomes bland, boring and unremarkable. Fear makes you choose the easy and safe decision.
Right now, nothing is easier than a list. Lists are the tools of an unsure and indecisive marketer. Is that really what you want? Is that what your client wants?
November 6th, 2008 at 7:20 am
Focused enough for ya? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXSwFEXRTCM