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Laryngitis Lessons

rex.briggs | 02 November, 2006 06:22

This week I have laryngitis. I’m following Doctors orders to not speak and have taken this week off from public presentations. And, the experience of not speaking, yet still trying to communicate, has given me some much needed reinforcement of communication concepts learned at University years ago. I think you might find them useful to advertising as well. Here are three nuggets – call them lessons of laryngitis.

First lesson of laryngitis: The first challenge is getting someone’s attention.

For all that has been written about marketing and dialogue, let’s never forget that the first challenge is getting someone’s attention. In two basic modes:

1. Someone seeking my point of view (easy to get their attention)
2. Me trying to get a response from someone else (much harder to get attention and dialogue started)

In the first mode, It is relatively easy for me to communicate (even without a voice) when someone comes into my office to get my point of view on a topic. Just like a consumer coming to your home page, or into your store for your perspective, a dialogue simply requires listening and responding to what the person wants. Figuring out what the person wants is actually easier with laryngitis because I’m all ears. As I heard many years ago, “God gave you two holes in your head to listen with and only one to speak with for a reason.” If marketers practiced listening better, I suspect that research on what consumers come to a website to learn (or explore) would boost the value of the website substantially.

The second mode, trying to get a response from someone else, is much harder and somewhat frustrating. This was particularly true at home. It was quite easy for my wife to ignore me, or at least be oblivious to my attempts to get her attention. Having seen reems of data from advertising, I think that most marketers find themselves in this boat where they are trying to engage a consumer, but only with marginal success. The situation can be summed up like this: The consumer isn’t looking for a dialogue, but the marketer feel they have something important to communicate and therefore tries valiantly to get the consumers attention.

My own attempts to get my wife’s attention included smiling (I don’t think she even looked at my face to notice), waving my hands, and, when that didn’t work, whistling. None of which were very successful. Now I know how a marketer must feel. They smile nicely – nothing. They wave their hands – nothing. They whistle – and the only reaction from the consumer is annoyance.

Did you know that when Marketing Evolution analyzed dozens of studies we found that if marketers advertised to 100 consumers, the typical response in terms of attitude shift was about 4. That means only 4 people out of 100 were engaged such that they got the message and their opinions improved in favorable manner. For all the smiling, hand waving and whistling marketers do, getting the consumers attention turns out to be a pretty difficult task.

Is there a better way? Stay tuned.

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