Why do problems attract customers? That's the question Herald Marketing columnist answers in this excerpt from his recently published book The Brain Audit - Why Customers Buy (And Why They Don't)
Imagine you're driving down the highway. You don't seem to have a care in the world. You're listening to the music, you're watching other cars as you pass them by. And you're mildly aware of the quickly changing scenery as you whizz down the road.
And then, from the corner of your eye, you notice something. You notice some red and blue flashing lights. What do you do? Almost instantly your foot goes on to the brakes. No matter what your speed, you seem overly eager to slow down.
So what caused you to quickly change your speed, and get instantly alert? You know the answer as well as I do. It was the red and blue flashing lights of the police car ahead, that caused your brain to do some pretty smart calculations. And that in turn caused you to slow down.
So why did the brain act in this manner?
The brain recognises a problem long before it recognises the solution to the problem. In a millisecond, the brain was able to work out the ramifications of what would happen should the policeman decide to focus on you. In those fractional seconds, the brain worked out how your trip would inevitably be delayed, and how you could cop a fine - among other nasty problems.
Your brain is indeed obsessed with problems. And for good reason too. The brain's job is to keep you alive, and yes, to help you reproduce and advance your species.
And to keep you alive, your brain starts to catalogue all the things, events, situations and experiences it needs. And very quickly it works out what's an irritant, what's kinda dangerous, and what's really scary. Which means that if I were to throw a tiny piece of cloth your way, you'd probably raise an eyebrow. But if I threw a block of wood instead, you'd be ducking, swerving and defending yourself in the best way possible.
That's your brain at work. And that smart little brain does one heck of a lot in a matter of milliseconds.
In any given situation your brain goes through these quick steps:
Step 1: Your brain sees change
Step 2: It recognises if you're going to be in trouble - or not
Step 3: It takes measures to get out of the way.
Which is why you tend not to step in dog poo.
Logically, dog poo should be the last thing on your mind as you walk down the street. Because as you look around you on the street, there are wonderful things to see. Stores full of goodies; restaurants filled with customers and enticing menus; interesting looking men, women and children passing you as you saunter by.
And then your brain sees it.
Right in front of you, in the midst of your wonderful surroundings, is dog poo on the pavement. And all the great goodies, restaurants, people and things go out of focus, as the brain takes every possible step to make sure you don't step in the poo.
Poo is icky. Poo is sticky. Poo has caused you enough trouble in the past. So while it's nowhere as life-threatening as the block of wood, your brain knows that it needs to focus on poo. As you can clearly see, the problem has got your attention to the exclusion of everything else.
Just like the problem gets Lisa's attention.
Let's take the example of Lisa. Lisa's laptop isn't quite working as efficiently as it should. But it's not a big worry for Lisa - not yet. Then as she's walking down the street, Lisa sees a sign that says: 'Is your laptop acting weird? It could be the first signs of an imminent hard disk crash'.
Suddenly, the sign has elevated Lisa's minor irritation into a bit of a crisis. Lisa can picture her laptop dying right in the middle of an important presentation. She can see the computer crash after she's put in a full day's work.
That computer problem which was just an irritant, is now recklessly racing to the top of her to-do list.
As you can see, problems seem to activate our brains.
And when you bring up the problem in your marketing materials, sales pitches and presentations, you are in turn activating the brains of your customers.
But how can we be so sure?
How can we be positive that the problem generates more brain activity than a solution? Let's look at the research. Let's look at the tests done by John Cacioppo, Ph.D., at Ohio State University.
John Cacioppo showed a bunch of people three sets of pictures. The first set normally arouses positive feelings (say, a Ferrari or a pizza). The second set of pictures stir up a problem in your brain (a mutilated face or dead cat). And the third set of pictures produce neutral feelings (a plate, a hair dryer).
And of course, as researchers tend to do, he faithfully recorded electrical activity of each participant's cerebral cortex. The cerebral cortex in turn, reflects the magnitude of information processing taking place.
The brain - Cacioppo demonstrated - reacts more strongly to stimuli it deems problematic. Or to put it another way, when faced with a problem vs. a solution, the problem really gets our attention.
As you can imagine, the neutral objects didn't excite the brain at all.
Plates and hair dryers were deemed too boring to get our brains all excited. But what was surprising during the research finding, was that our brains were more aroused by a problem than a solution.
You'd think a gleaming red Ferrari would have really got the pulse racing - and it did.
But when shown images of problems, the brain activity stepped up to a much higher degree.
You're advised by the Weather Bureau to take an umbrella because it's going to rain. Is the Weather Bureau being negative by issuing the rain warning?
with a problem
Chug-chug computers.
Chug-chug cars.
Eventually all new and
improved products and
services are based on
solving a chug-chug problem.
So yes, problems get our attention, better than anything else.
Yet, most of us don't communicate with problems. Instead we bring up solutions. And there's a specific reason why we bring up solutions. Most marketing or sales courses have completely side-stepped the importance of the problem. Most courses or books will tell you to highlight the benefits of a product or service.
And what are benefits, but solutions?
So while the brain is focused on the problem, we use the solution/benefits to get the attention of our customers. Is it any wonder that your marketing and sales doesn't get the kind of response you're expecting?
But waitasec, aren't problems a negative way of looking at things? And are we just making up problems to scare customers?
Are we?
Let's put this doubt to rest with an example.
You're doing fine driving your 1980s sedan. It has a few dents and looks a little dated, but you don't care. Until you have to start showing up for corporate meetings where everyone else owns a flashy car. Suddenly what seemed like a reasonable form of transport has become a bit of an embarrassment. The problem wasn't top of mind a few weeks ago, yet suddenly you're acutely aware of how much you need to get a more "socially acceptable" car.
Suddenly you have a problem that didn't exist a while ago.
Suddenly you're a lot like the passenger in Economy Class of every airline.
A passenger in Economy Class only has a problem because they're aware of the splendour of Business Class or First Class. If Business or First Class didn't exist, not one of us would refer to economy class as "cattle class".
By creating Business Class and First Class, airlines created a problem that just didn't exist.
It's the same story with computers.
Remember the 486? Okay, so you don't. But in the good ol' days when 486's were the fastest computer, everyone dreamed of moving from their clunky 386 to the wonderful 486. Then the Pentium processor came along, and the 486 became too slow and almost unbearable. Of course, computer processors change all the time, and faster, sleeker processors take their place.
A fast processor that seems to be a solution today, is a problem tomorrow. A new car that's shiny and wonderful today, is a problem tomorrow. And so it goes: whatever you're selling only has add-on value if you're solving a problem. If you're not solving a problem in some new and interesting way, then what's the point of your product or service?
This affirms that we're not making up problems to scare customers into buying our products/services. All we're really doing is highlighting the issues that exist. And showing customers how their lives can be better, if they adopt our products/services. And of course, we do this by highlighting the problem.
Which in itself brings up a big issue: problems seem to be a negative way to communicate. Won't this negative attitude turn off the customer?
Are we being too negative?
It's a valid question.
And there's a valid answer.
You're not being negative at all. Highlighting a 'problem' is no different than your telling a child to look both ways before crossing the road. Or telling a friend to make sure they don't see a specific movie, because the story line is plainly boring.
Instead of being a scaremonger, the problem is an educational tool.
It brings to the fore factors that already exist. What's more, a problem may reveal a situation that you aren't currently aware of.
A situation that could get you in trouble if you're not careful.
Like for instance, if your cambelt breaks on the highway.
What's a 'cambelt' you ask? I didn't know either, 'til the mechanic looked at my odometer on the car dashboard. "You've done well over 100,000 km", he said. "And you need to make sure your cambelt is fixed".
And notice what's happening? While the mechanic is giving me these dire warnings I've begun to realise something quite interesting: the cambelt isn't even broken.
But ah, what happens if the cambelt does break?
The engine starts alright, but the engine would turn over without any compression at all. Once the darned cambelt breaks, your car's engine starts without compression, causing the valves to bend. Once that happens you're in big trouble. Trouble that will cost you a mini-fortune.
But hey, my cambelt wasn't broken. It didn't even seem frayed. The car ran just fine. In fact, the car had done over 175,000 km (that's 75,000 more than the cambelt should have been exposed to).
But the problem remains. One day, the cambelt will break. And do I want to wait for that day? Do I really want to spend mucho dollars? From a total state of ignorance, I've gone to being a bit of an expert on cambelts.
The problem exists.
You aren't making it up.
You aren't being negative.
You are actually educating your audience, which isn't aware of the problem until you bring it up. Even if your customers weren't thinking about cambelts (or whatever you're selling) ten minutes ago, that product/service now becomes a must-have item. In effect, all you're doing is creating a factor of urgency; elevating a problem to code-red.
So how do you elevate the problem?
You've got to recognise that your customer already has squillions of things to worry about.
Things like picking up the kids from school. Like that board meeting later in the day. Like that new software that's giving him a headache. And while your customer is dealing with all of those day-to-day headaches, that very same customer is dealing with peripheral problems like not stepping into poo, and avoiding flying blocks of wood.
Amidst all this clutter of problems, we have to get the customer's attention. And we have to do so in a way that the customer will at least show some interest in the product/service we have to offer.
But how do you get the customer's attention amidst all this chaos?
You isolate the problem.
Every product or service solves several problems simultaneously. So if you look at a mug of coffee, it solves various problems. For some, that mug represents a break from work. For some, it's a way to meet a friend. For some, it's a business meeting. And for others, it's just a pick-me-up after a tiring session.
The problem arises when we try to send out your problem-based message to all of the above groups. More often than not, we'll want to get all our customers with the least amount of effort, and so we'll take the route that is bound to meet with failure. We'll create a problem-based message that appeals to everyone.
Instead, what we should be doing, is isolating the problem.
