Shiny Object Marketing :: Book Excerpts

On shiny objects in our lives…

Shiny objects are ever present in our lives. They are all around us, every moment of the day. We are surrounded by tens of thousands of them. However, not all of them attract our attention. In fact, most of them go unnoticed. The reason is that they are only shiny to us if they have personal meaning or relate to our own unique physical or developmental needs.

Many of these shiny objects are literally shiny, such as diamonds, stars, gold, silver, new cars, glistening water, crystal glasses, or a million other objects that gleam and shimmer. But most of the shiny objects that actually catch our attention do not have a “shiny” facade. They only appear shiny if they appeal to an intrinsic need inside of us. Take the diamond, for example. You might be inclined to say that the diamond would be a shiny object regardless of the situation. However, what if you were stranded in the desert, dying of thirst, and a diamond and a glass of water were placed before you? Which one would be your shiny object? In that situation, the diamond is suddenly worthless. Even though it is physically shiny, it has no attraction. Your mind would be solely focused on the glass of water.

Most shiny objects in our lives are not shiny in appearance at all; rather, they attract our attention and motivate us to grab them because they connect to our innermost personal desires and needs. A good example of a nonshiny shiny object is food. There is nothing physically shiny about a freshly baked load of bread. Yet, because of the way it activates the senses and our recollection of how it tastes, it catches our attention when we walk into a room where it’s displayed.

Often, the shiniest objects in our lives are people. We experience tremendous attraction to other people and will often go to extraordinary lengths and sacrifice to obtain and keep a connection with them. While it is true that a few people have sacrificed their lives in pursuit of gold, diamonds, and other worldly possessions, thousands have died for other people. Sometimes the pursuit of this shiny object comes in the form of trying to help other people. Other times, it comes from following people who we believe will guide us down the “yellow brick road.” People can be so strongly attracted to other people that they attempt to emulate them, right down to their hair, clothes, and speaking style. We even call people that shine above the rest “stars.” The really great ones are “superstars”.

Children are usually the shiniest objects in the lives of their parents. Everything that children do attracts their mother and father’s attention. Many parents would sacrifice their own lives to protect these shiny objects. History is replete with accounts of parents who gave up everything so their children might have better lives. The more these shiny objects shine, the more the parents shine. Parents pay millions of dollars every year to polish these shiny objects: dance lessons, sports, tutors, clothes, music lessons, and college. To a parent bent on making sure their child reaches his or her fullest, shiniest potential, there is no price that is too high to pay. And when parents don’t have the money to pay that price, they borrow it. Parents routinely go into heavy debt to provide their children with higher education and other developmental-need fulfillment.

Most modern persuasion theory focuses on overcoming or appealing to a person’s attitudes. Richard M. Perloff, considered by many to be the foremost authority on persuasion, wrote in his book The Dynamics of Persuasion: “If you understand the factors impinging on someone and how he or she thinks about a persuasive message, you have a good chance of devising a message that will target the individual’s attitudes”. This is clearly the case if you accept the fact that all persuasion must be done on a cognitive level. However, if you can bypass attitudes—and as a result, bypass most traditional persuasion theory—then you can go right to the instinctive level.

If you accept the premise that you must overcome attitudes before persuading a person to take a specific action, then you also must accept the often-complicated process of developing a message that accomplishes that goal. Alternatively, if you base your message on a shiny object, you need only concern yourself with finding that shiny object—which is usually much simpler.

Shiny Objects Marketing is based on instincts rather than on cognitive processes. However, Shiny Objects Marketing accepts both points of view. While many of our attitudes are the result of learned behavior, there is a layer of instinctual response that we don’t even think about. We simply react to stimuli.

To be truly powerful, a shiny object must do more than just catch your prospects’ eye. It must take them through a process that results when you stimulate their overwhelming urge to possess it.

Consider the raccoon. Once he sees a shiny object, he isn’t content to simply gaze at it. Instead, the shiny object has such power over him that he has to grab it and not let go. How would you like your customers to be like that? They certainly will be, if you make sure that your customers’ shiny objects contain all five facets described below.

Sometimes these shiny object facets could appear to happen very quickly or even simultaneously; however, every shiny object must attain each facet to truly be a shiny object. The facets occur in a precise order:

Focus on the experience, not the product; experiences motivate people, products don’t. People remember emotions and events much more readily than things. By tying a distinct familiarity to your brand, you form a connection with the customer’s shiny object and create something memorable. When asked about brands, people rarely say, “They have an excellent braking system,” “The noise reduction circuitry is outstanding,” or “Their steaks are served at 125 degrees.” Instead, people are more likely to say things like, “I really felt safe in that car,” “The sound was so crystal clear,” or “The steak was sizzlin’ hot.”

You can’t always control how people will react to your marketing and advertising, but you can manage and control, to a large degree, the interaction that they have with your product. The factors that make up an outstanding experience can be measured, tracked, and reproduced. This allows you to very precisely determine how to ensure that every customer has the same experience. People can be trained, products revised, and environments established to produce consistent results.

Comfortable familiarity: Once you have it, don’t let it go. Comfortable familiarity is also known as brand inertia and is one of the best ways to make sure your customer will keep a strong hold on your brand, product, or service. The goal is to make your customers feel so comfortable with your product that the energy or risk required to change is simply not worth it. High-end car dealers are exceptionally skilled at this. Two days after you buy the car, they call to make sure everything is okay. A week later, they send a postcard thanking you for the purchase. A few weeks later, you start receiving a special magazine all about your car and the lifestyle associated with ownership of it. They offer free oil changes and car washes. They send you friendly reminders about service. And heaven forbid there should be a recall of a device on the car—they become extremely apologetic and do everything they can to make it convenient for you, including giving you a rental car. After all of this attention, it becomes difficult to go elsewhere.

It doesn’t matter what people say they want to hear. It only matters what actually motivates them to buy. People—especially the ones in focus groups—will tell you what they think you want to hear or what they think they should say. That’s not to say that focus groups can’t be very useful, but it is extremely difficult to get the participants to express their true feelings. The closest I ever came to extracting real information from people in a focus group was by putting all of the participants under hypnosis. But short of that, people can’t be completely trusted to tell you what really motivates them. The fact is, most of the time, they don’t really know what motivates them in the first place. They act on impulses or primal needs. Why does a person buy a four-wheel drive SUV to drive around town, never intending to take it into the snow or off-road? Why does someone buy professional cooking equipment at home when they usually eat out? Why does someone insist on buying a house with a pool that they never dip a foot in?

People are full of contradictions. The only true measure of what motivates your customers to buy is their actions. Actions usually don’t lie. People don’t spend their hard-earned cash on a product to just to convince a researcher that they want the product. They buy it because they really want it—even if only for that moment. They are compelled to purchase because the product is their shiny object.