Viva la Publicité

It’s the tenth anniversary of the movie Fight Club, the one where Brad Pitt stars as an all-knowing anti-advertisement communist who makes ‘hitting the bottom’ looks cool enough.

I’m a fan of this mind-twisting flick, simply because it conveys a meaningful message, the message that strikes through our unconscious stream of societal standards, peer regulation and the recycle bin of rationalism.

White-collar working class is manipulatable.

I’m sure ‘manipulatable’ isn’t a word, but then we can easily manipulate the fact so that you’ll believe it is.

If desk-cubicle-photocopy-coffee is your everyday combo, is it possible that..

• You want to work someplace else, but your needs strapped you tight with your current company.
• You always wanted to look for a higher salary, but but you can’t risk your current paycheck.
• You’re always on the hunt for newer fashionable stuff and swap your cell phones faster than your underwear.
• Your monthly financial commitments (loan repayments, gym etc.) leaving you eating less than what you desire.
• You don’t own any real estate property.

If most of those things sound like your cake, then you’re working in a job you hate buying things you don’t need….therefore:

Advertising is your Buddha.

Advertising tells you what to buy and how to wear and when to snort. If you don’t fall for it, your peers and your family will. If you refuse to oblige, they will judge you. If you won’t comply, they’ll force you to confirm.

Together, you’re subjected to a social standard, set as a result of cumulative hallucination by advertising that collectively targets all the people in your life, making a large peninsular of opinion that you must attach your tiny island of personality to. As a result, you will confirm to this standard, and embrace advertising as your divine orientation.

Is this bad for you? Not really.

You are not special. You’re not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else. We’re all part of the same compost heap. We’re all singing, all dancing crap of the world.

-Tyler Durden, Fight Club

So you’re just fulfilling your role, in style. Still, unlike what the movie tries to tell you, you have choices. Be a slave of advertising- or subject yourself to the communist. In a way, apart from they both consider Che’ Guevara cool, they both will make you feel stupid.

 

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Powerful Words In Marketing

Part of the marketing process is marketing communication, which involves direct selling or advertising copywriting. These form the showdown- the crucial window of opportunity for you to make your prospective customer act.

A sad truth is that human is so easy to deceive. Even more saddening is only 1 choice of word is enough to get the job done. Even more and more saddening is this is not a secret: traditionally marketers have been using these words for their financial gains, but these word still work, and I bet it still will even millenniums from now.

Basic Literature presents to you, the most powerful words in marketing:

Discounts

Sales lines like ‘price-cut’, ‘now cheaper’ and ‘sale’ can really  work. Consumers quickly recognize the deal as valuable- admitting by purchasing the item will make them ‘smart consumer’.

“By buying this stuff right now for $50, I save $20!”

A classic deception- consumers will spend more to save more. Business wins.

Free

‘Free! With a purchase of [product]’ or ‘ get another on free when you buy now’ is a popular way of writing-off obsolete stock. No matter how rubbish the free product is (of course they are, otherwise we’d sold them before), the term ‘value’ will transform the consumer into a systematic free-loader.

I don’t care if it works, as long as I get something for free…it’s a value deal.

Limited

Using ‘for limited time/place only’, coupled with the call ‘hurry-up!’ are very good to produce a state of hysteric paranoia, associated with having to face the possibility of out-of-stock disappointment.

“Oh no! What happen if I’m too late? Better grab it first before it’s too late.”

This type of thinking makes the customer ‘act first, think later’ which demonstrates the success in increasing sales of crappy products. Combined with a call-to-action tools like telephone number, it will multiply the probability of action taken by the prospect after being exposed to these words.

Guaranteed

‘Money-back guarantee’, ‘No-Question asked policy’ plant the perceptions:

“I don’t have anything to loose if I buy this”,

“there’s no risk at all since I can return this”

…..in the consumer’s mind. Given the fact that marketers including physical retailers still use this word in the business, so few customers actually ever return the stuff the bought. Why? Because the regret they get after buying it will not be enough to persuade them through the hassle of returning the product.

Proven

Most of the time, it’s not like some credible third-party auditor with a systematic study that certify the product as ‘proven’. More often it’s the in-house, trivial experiments with intolerable standard of error that back up the claim saying the said product has been proven to work.

However, the word is powerful since it actually deliver the message into the consumer’s mind that

“hey somebody has been using it before me, so what the heck.”

With additional lines like ‘try it yourself!’, your sales will jump tenfold.

Immediately

The word like ‘immediately available’, or ‘ready stock’ make consumers think that the product can be rapidly available for consumption which means the time needed for them to face the moment of truth (to the claims about the product) has been shortened.

Hey I can quickly use the product in a matter of minutes!

…even though the result may take several months to show up, it doesn’t matter. Because at the end of the day, ‘impulse’ decision is the only reason why so many products are sold.

*****

Well…the bottom line is, consumers are always influenced by impulse decisions in purchasing goods and services.

The words listed above are the fuel for the impulse flame.

 

Read also:

Retailing: Clever Tactics Targeting The Not-So Clever

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How To Handle A Stupid Boss

Yes it is possible that your boss is a hard-worker, he stays back every day. He can be a great communicator- he speaks with charm, and have a boatloads of charisma, his bosses and superiors adore him.

But at the same time, it is also possible that he’s stupid. He can’t get even a simple job done on his own. He’s incompetent in the technical sides of everything, repeating the same mistakes every time. He’s a slow learner, repetitively questioning your work unnecessarily, insisting he’s right over and over again.

And at the end of the day, he’ll take all the credits, unbeknown to his superiors that your boss is nothing without you.

And I understand how this annoys you. Your work becomes 10 times more complicated, the arguments and repetitive briefings mean it took longer time to finish even the simplest tasks, and it all ends up with him getting the compliments.

As usual, you can stop this.

 

Let his superiors know…

Plant time bomb in your work

In your report, plant some intentional errors that he, because of his naivety, won’t detect. Let’s hope the report gets submitted to his superiors and they notice the mistakes and tick him off for submitting a report full of flaw…which obviously proves that he’s incompetent, or someone else is doing his job and he didn’t bother/know how to check.

 

Sabotage his meetings/presentation

If you prepare materials for his meetings and presentations, always leave crucial but basic information out of his slides, files or notes. When he’s in the middle of the meeting/presentation, he’ll come to a complete halt because of those omitted simple facts. This will publicly prove that he doesn’t have even the basic knowledge, and will trigger an inquisition into his past work and credibility.

 

Stamp at footer and docs info

If he repetitively take credits for everything you do, stamp your work documents with ‘prepared by [your name]’ in places he’ll find it hard to edit. In Word’s documents for example, type your name in the footer. Even better, in PowerPoint's slide, use the slide master.

 

Let him know…

Quietly submits application for training on his behalf

Apply, quietly for him, for basic training courses (How To Use Microsoft Office) or other classes deemed only suitable for complete noobs and beginners (like him). Look at how he’ll sit back and wonder whether he actually needs the training and struggles to rationalize the reasons he doesn’t need one.

 

Flaunt your credentials everywhere

Use your cubicle as your gigantic resume: hang your professional certificates,  technical credentials, your academic achievements..anything that speaks you’re technically more qualified than him in every single way possible.

 

Always use jargons to speak with him in public

He’ll struggle to keep up with the technical side of the conversation, and will try hard to prove to the others he knows what he’s talking about, looking like an idiot all the way.

 

Let’s hope this combo of awareness will neutralize him out of your way- let’s hope he’ll learn some respect for you.

……Just don’t forget to abuse that respect as a revenge.

 

You should also read: How To Handle Your Raging Boss

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How Corporate Practices Can Change The World

The decision by Maggie Whitman, former C.E.O of EBay and the poster girl for corporate women, to run for the Governor of California splits the opinion poll. Can a woman fix one of the world’s largest economy?

 

What’s interesting is how her supporters are pulling behind her track record- how she managed to fix the company and grow it tenfold. The consensus among them is that if you can fix corporate organizations, you can fix anything. After all it’s all about management isn’t it.

So let’s see how we can use the corporate methodology to fix the world.

 

Global warming: The buzz that struggles to gain momentum

The global warming is a hype that, although spreading like a wildfire, tends to be put off quickly. So, in order to enhance our message for the long run, we should let the environment deteriorate so that the people can get the actual feel of the effect.

We should save all the money from those ineffective promotional stunts for the restoration work, which will garner a more effective support from the public. It’s a more efficient strategy.

Strategies involved: product demonstration, budget allocation strategy

 

Energy depletion: The struggles to pick the alternatives

Debates after debates can’t resolve the million dollar question: which alternative is the best? Proponents of different alternatives (like solar, nuclear) continuously discredit each other.  By us being skeptical to one another, the depleting conventional energies won hands down. Let’s suppress the skeptics. 

Give free demo samples to the public to test themselves- hand out mini-plants powered by the alternatives like solar panel and the nuclear mini reactor, to power their homes. Let the people decide based on their experience.

Strategies involved: free samples, crowd-sourcing

 

Terrorism: The affect of being terrorized by the terror threat

Today, terrorists would just have to issue a public threat, sit back, and let the paranoid response from the public do the damage. To quell this phobia, let’s organize an intensive press releases- let’s tell the world that we’re not afraid of terrorism, they’re our friends, we’re mutually benefiting entity.

Strategies involved:  PR damage control, branding and positioning

 

The plagues (AIDS, H1N1): The effort to increase action taken

Let’s infect random people in a wide range of geography. Let the public be the vector- for both the disease and the message. This is an effective way to capitalize word of mouth where the patients, as a walking endorser, can reach a wider audience.

It’s more credible and wide-targeting than any paid advertisements can do, so let’s hope it will persuade more actions.

Strategies involved: Word-of-mouth marketing, endorsement tactics

 

Economy- Light at the end of the tunnel

The current economy, in optimism speak, is the dark tunnel with the light at the end of it. But the problem is, the light is in the opposite direction. We’re more and more into the mess the more we progress.

Well, it’s obvious that the corporate world can’t fix the economy. Because it’s the cause of the fall in the first place. So, step back, and let the government fix it. Only they can do it now.

Strategy involved: Bankruptcy protection

 

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Don’t Let Your Subordinates Steal Your Job

The ugly side of being a manager is the ratio of people fighting for your job.

You alone : All your subordinates

As the probability of you being an awesome manager is remote, therefore I conclude that you’re not competent enough to be the best person for the job compared with your subordinate.

But wait. Don’t succumb to the vanity mirror. Here’s how you can reduce the probability of you being replaced by your star subordinate.

 

Restrain them - Reinforce fear

Motivation is yesterday’s tool. Don’t motivate people to polish their performance, or your top management will soon realize you’re outshined by your subordinate. Use fear instead to keep them going, so that they’ll perform just to be in the safe zone, not the ‘excellent’ zone.

 

Break them - Discourage teamwork

As I’ve mentioned earlier, a well-organized team will lead to a well-organized resistance. You’re too weak to face that. Break them apart. In a meeting, they should only talk to you. They shall not work in pairs. If possible, they should work in different floors. Or different country. Whatever necessary.

 

Weaken them - Be vague

Don’t be precise in your orders.  Give hints, not directions. Train them to read your mind. Next, change your mind often. This way, in the event of failure, your management principle is not to be blame, because you have none. You can now blame your subordinates for their lack of apprehension in the way you work.

 

 

Spy them - Select your clandestine agent

Quickly pick your favorite among your colleagues and promote them as your sarjeant-at-arms. This person must be, or, have the potential to be, your most loyal fan in the department. This person will be your eyes and ears, in the office wherever you’re not around. This person is your department’s Secret Police, so you’ll know any plan for coup-d’etat and eliminate the threat before the Operation Valkyrie commence.

 

Discourage them - Keep your succession planning public

You should analyze your subordinates according to the threat they posed to your position. In ascending order, list down your preferences of successor. The least threatening subordinate will be the top progeny in your succession planning. Your most threatening rival will know he/she doesn’t stand a chance to be promoted and will call it a quit, literally.

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