043 The Invisible Touch – The Brand Placebo Effect

The Second Key: Brand
The mind is a very powerful instrument.
Harry Beckwith shares a marketing story I have heard often, and one I like a lot (because I represent the market on which the testing was done: bald guys!).
Rub It In And It Works
Lured by ads promising to grow new hair (before products like Rogaine and Propecia were known), a man goes to what he thinks is a clinic and finds out it is part of a "market test" for Rogaine. The technician rubs some on his bald pate and sends him home with a supply of it.
After three weeks of dutifully participating, the man examines his head in the mirror and finds that he has new hair growing on the top of his head.
Except he didn't.
He had continued to lose hair every day and nothing new was on his head.
But he THOUGHT there was.
Why?
The placebo effect.
Though you would think he could LOOK to see that nothing new had sprung up, he was so taken with the IDEA that it would work and the BRAND name of the company and product that he was SURE it worked.
What he had been using was not unlike the potion concocted by Sweeney Todd (in the Stephen Sondheim musical of the same name) which we were told in lyrics was made of "piss and ink." (The Rogaine test was made of mostly water and a coloring.)
A full 30% in the test thought it grew new hair (while 60% of those using the product felt the same way).
Branding: Get Them To Purchase, Convince Them It Works
Branding is not just about someone knowing your product without having to analyze it again, it's having them know you so well that they are sure that your product will deliver every time what is promised.
For example, when you go to buy cereal or bread or milk or orange juice, you probably don't stop to analyze all the details about it: you know it, you know its quality, and you just pick it up from the grocery shelf.
And that's where WE want to be: in that almost unconscious place in the mind where people don't have to THINK about working with us, they just know that we are the one to go with.
Brands can do that, especially when YOU are the brand.
Brands do more than build image – they build trust, faith, loyalty. Build yours and get working on the trust, faith, and loyalty!
Best,
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Charlie Seymour Jr
Blogging, Podcasting, Consulting
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Charlie Seymour Jr is an entrepreneurial evangelist and marketing-success coach helping individuals and companies (up to $100MM) explode their success through online and direct-response marketing. He specializes in blogging, podcasting, photography, video, and Facebook applications. Visit his blog at http://bit.ly/24eYTO to learn more about his successes.
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Fallacies of Marketing
043 The Invisible Touch – The Brand Placebo Effect
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