Stuck in a rut

It seems that while last week’s quality assured words of wisdom and enlightenment met with general and widespread approbation, the burst of Latin wrong footed a few of you. Apologies. It still comes as a surprise and a shock that as a result of the monstrous neglect by the Head Honchos and State Apparatchiks who run our educational establishments of one of the finest languages ever seen, that few are now Latin literate.

Maybe we should start a campaign; or set up a Facebook page; or set up a No 10 Petition, assuming that our new Caesars are as committed to open government as the last Caesar was, to lobby for the return of Latin in our educational establishments.

Cicero was even accused of showing off. As if.

Last week we talked about ego marketing and this week we are going to be introduced to default marketing. And you thought marketing was all about advertising, the 4 Ps and meeting customer needs. Clever marketing is so much more than that as you are now all finding out.

In our VTSSB we have a leaflet which encourages people to go online or phone a number for more information. You will have leaflets like this in your business too. Crucially the web address was first and in slightly larger print and obviously this is where more of our customers went. This was good for us as it was cheaper to serve them but it was also bad for us as it gave us less opportunity to close the sale.

And so we switched the calls to action around and led with the phone number. Do you know what? Phone calls and sales spiked. We had changed the default. And that is default marketing.

Let us look at organ donations. In countries where ‘opt in’ is the norm, such as the UK, organ donor rates barely reach 20%. By contrast in countries where ‘opt out’ is the norm the rates often exceed 90%.

As sentient human beings we go with the flow, we are happy complying with the status quo. And when faced with a difficult or complex choice we stick with what we know best and carry on doing what we always have done and avoid making a decision. As animals we are comfortable to stay stuck in our ruts.

It is the role of the marketer and the marketing tools she deploys (did you note what happened there?) to break the cycle of default, to change the habit. And it is not an over exaggeration that all human progress depends on this happening and on the marketer being successful. Otherwise the status quo prevails and human behaviour stays stuck in a rut. And nothing should be more antagonistic to marketers than this.

And therefore adjusting our market’s default settings can be a powerful marketing approach.

Some examples of this have already been provided where we shifted the choice architecture. We can also edit choice by removing the most offending options or by introducing products and services that extend choice. The development of hybrid cars is an example of this.

And think about how supermarkets have bowed to the eco-mentalists outrageous claims that plastic bags damage Gaia and now only offer such weapons of mass destruction on request. Default marketing or mind manipulation, you choose? But it works.

Finally at our VTSSB we are grappling with the marketing challenge of switching people to use our online services. Default marketing is critical to this. By promoting 3Ws as primus inter pares with our other channels, by adding to the complexity of our other channels and by ensuring that transacting through 3Ws is quicker and less hassle than anything else we are changing the default, smashing the status quo and moving out of the rut.

Any more examples of great default marketing out there you want to share?

And hopefully, you can now see that unsticking the rut your customers might be stuck in, is not just about spending a lot of money with ITV or with fancy dan London luvvie dream factories. There are low cost low tech solutions out there if you think about them.

Is it only me…………but can we stop applying ourselves?

Do you have an iPhone? If you are like Cicero, then this technology will have passed you by and you might not know what we are about to talk about. If you do have one of these fancy modern gizmos you will no doubt be into apps. Why? It is beyond Cicero’s comprehension why these super geeky gizmos attract so much attention.

Discussions about apps have overtaken house prices as the topic of conversation at the smartest of dinner parties as the guests, usually the male ones, seek to outdo each other with the latest pointless and useless app. Is this what Aristotle, Newton, Berners-Lee and all the other great scientists who stood on the shoulders of each other have reduced the human condition to?

Cicero has seen pointless apps which will tell you the make, carrier and destination of planes flying overhead. Why would anyone think that Cicero would want to know that? He has also seen apps that let you know your sleeping patterns through the night and which allow you to pour a virtual pint of a well known Irish alcoholic beverage. As has already been said pointless and useless . And hugely worrying that otherwise rational executive sentient beings should display symptoms of ACD or App Compulsive Disorder.

And here is another really worrying thing. There are mags dedicated to promoting these geeky gizmos. Yes, mags, plural. Worrying, isn’t it. And what is even more worrying is that these ads feature scantily clad women to promote said gizmos. This is the kind of marketing last seen in ‘Ashes to Ashes’. Most Marketing Grand Fromages have moved on from using lust as a marketing technique. Maybe it says a lot about the kind of people suffering ACD.

If you are sufferer, don’t despair totally. Cicero is well acquainted with a sufferer who is also one of the accountancy professions finest, who has a glittering career and a happy marriage so ACD is not necessarily an impediment.

Now it might only be me and maybe Cicero can be called a luddite but for those of you suffering from ACD, here is something else to pre-occupy your brain cells for a bit-re-arrange these words to form a well known phrase or saying ‘ A life get’.

Have you ever come across a useful app? Let us know. And do please share with us the most pointless one. There will be a lot of contenders for that last one. A wee prize is on offer for the most pointless app but usual Cicero rules apply.

Have a great week.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.