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unsane marketing
Most people are unsane. They aren't completely sane, and they aren't completely insane. They're somewhere in between. That's an important distinction when you're in the field of marketing and advertising.
Alfred Korzybski, who developed the concept of general semantics, explained it this way: Insane people try to make the world of reality fit what is inside their heads. Someone who thinks he's Napoleon makes the outside world fit that notion. He filters and interprets the events and signals around him to fit that belief. There is no room at all for facts. But the sane person is exactly the opposite. She constantly analyzes the world of reality and adjusts what is in her head to fit the facts. In other words, while the insane person has only opinions, the sane person never has opinions or feelings. She would be totally unaffected by colors, shapes, other people's viewpoints and so on--using only cold, hard facts to make every decision. She would buy a mustard-colored sports car called the Slug on the same basis as a bright red Viper because issues of color or semantics have nothing to do with actual performance. What friends think wouldn't even be an issue. Indeed, a completely sane person would be like a computer--and in many situations would be unable to make any decision at all!
As you can see, most people are somewhere in between. You make up your mind about something you like based on input from many sources, including visual appearance and emotion--your gut reaction. How you feel about it overall. You find facts which prove that you are making the right decision, despite the fact that many aspects of your decision are not based on fact but on opinion. You may even find the nearest expert (or non-expert) and accept his or her opinion. That way you don't have to bother with too many facts. In the advertising business, that's called "word of mouth." So where did the 'expert' you went to get his or her opinion from? The same 'unsane' way you did!
A good marketing or advertising strategy makes use of this psychological process. A good strategy must be simple, fitting easily into the mind of the prospect. It must be memorable. It must strike an emotional chord with the target audience. And it must provide enough facts to satisfy "unsane" people. Some good examples of this kind of approach are:
Pepsi: The Choice of a New Generation
This campaign used emotion to trigger existing feelings of rebellion in young people, giving them an option to drink something different from what their parents were used to. Does this have anything to do with taste? No. But it worked wonders with an unsane audience.
Coke: The Real Thing
This campaign stood on Coca Cola's position as the "original" soft drink. The factual side of this strategy combined with the implied perception that any product that has been a leader for so long must taste good. Personally, I think it's a weak campaign (no product definition), but it served the need Coke had to re-establish its position as the "original" cola.
BMW: The Ultimate Driving Machine
Despite the fact that this car doesn't look anything like a true sports car, this campaign effectively positioned the BMW as a driving enthusiast's automobile. A certain amount of factual information had to be used to make the statement believable, but I wonder how many people make a sports-car buying decision without ever trying a Porsche.
United: Fly the Friendly Skies
I've flown many airlines, and although I prefer United, I've found staff at most of them equally friendly and courteous. But this ad campaign has worked well for United, because people want to believe that there's a difference. Of course, success with this type of approach means you better be as good or better than others in the specified strength, or you could crash and burn (it won't be pretty).
Intel: Intel Inside
Launched at a time when Intel's Pentium computer chip was already being upstaged by much faster, more efficient RISC chips, the idea that the Pentium is the best chip out there is laughable. Yet this campaign has been very effective in creating exactly that perception, because most people are simply too busy to gather all the facts necessary to make a truly informed computer purchasing decision.
Microsoft: Start Me Up
Another example of unsane marketing, by the greatest marketing powerhouse I've ever seen. Microsoft comes out with a clunky version of something Apple perfected ten years earlier, and millions of "unsane" computer users around the world are gushing the miraculous innovation of long file names, plug-and-play capability, and the desktop metaphor. Ain't it just grand?