Credibility and Hype

  We live in a hyped-up world full of incredible new technologies.

  Yet miracle breakthroughs are rare. The most recent breakthrough medical cure was the polio vaccine. That hasn’t stopped a lot of medical products from being marketed as breakthroughs - look at Botox and Viagra - and look at the "problems" they solve. The problems many "breakthrough" treatments in medicine solve are not actually life-threatening health problems - they are problems of self-image.

  Human beings are psychologically vulnerable to advertising appeals that promise instant relief from their problems... which are often rooted in choices made by the individual.

  With some markets like bodybuilding and money-making products hype is the whole game and the market responds to it with enthusiasm with only meager proof. In other markets like investment advice hype won’t cut it - the readers are operating from a more logical state of mind and while there may be an emotional component to the decision the sales offer needs credibility and proof to sell well.

  Some groups of readers will respond appeals that are coarse and laughable. Just look at the ads in the Tabloid Magazines. As a business owner you might find the miracle diets silly yet they sell an awful lot of product every year. Look at the direct response ads in the papers and magazines read mostly by educated professionals and you’ll see the hypey, emotional appeals lurking beneath a surface of coherent credibility-boosting content.

  A big part of the copywriter’s job is to gather and organize the evidence and proof in the sales message. If there is no credibility to the offer it’s almost by definition going to be all hype - outlandish promises with nothing to back it up.

  When I was a kid I would send away for these things in the back of comic books. X-Ray glasses and so forth. What I got for my money was usually disappointing but the excitement of ordering the thing and rushing to check the mail every day was everything. X-ray glasses don’t actually work at all - but when you are a kid your imagination compensates. I got SeaMonkeys too - and I actually believed they were these little magical creatures. When I found out they were brine shrimp I still thought they were cool but the reality never equalled the fantasy.

  Kids are vulnerable to hyped-up marketing but as we grow older, more skeptical, and start taking our buying decisions more seriously we want assurances. Guarantees. Proof.

  Credibility can be built in a lot of ways. Among the most transparent and obvious is to hire a celebrity or a Physician to speak for your protect - or be one yourself. George Forman’s accomplishments as an athlete have no relation to cooking, but his fame and charisma have brought a lot of credibilty to a cheap plastic kicthen appliance most buyers only use a few times.

  Testimonials can be used to provide "social proof " - because people love to follow a crowd they’ll buy more willingly even from reading a testimonial from a complete and distant stranger.

  I read book reviews on Amazon when considering books to buy. In business books especially there is a certain amount of dreck and also a lot of redundancy - I look mostly for books which have a major consensus of reviewers claiming the book is worthwhile. That’s a form of social proof. I even like reading reviews so much I started writing them.