Marketing by Dummies: Big Claims = Big Credibility!
January 24th, 2008 by Dominic Canterbury
If your marketing strategy is inspired by observations of Madison Avenue, I can pretty much guarantee you’re making this mistake. Most Mad Ave strategies seem to be based on the above simple (and idiotic) equation. And because trust in advertising is at historic lows, we’re seeing a comparable increase in ridiculously inflated claims.
My favorite example ever of such Claim Inflation is the tagline “Reveal the Goddess Within” for Venus leg-shaving razors. Gag me with a spoon. What. Is the razor so sharp that it’s going to scrape away your sins? (Here’s my blog post about it.)
The huge, HUGE problem with this approach is, 1) it’s annoying and 2) it doesn’t work. Hell, you could say that you are “the worlds best, ultimate streamlined orgasmic world-rocking life solution,” and it wouldn’t even cause a twitch on the credibility meter.
Why?
Because credibility cannot be asserted. It can only be proven.
How do you prove credibility? There are two ways. Credibility can be proven either by one’s own direct experience or through the experience of someone they trust.
Think about it. If some blogger you trust said simply, “they are really good,” that would cause a huge swing in the credibility meter. Right?
This is one of the reasons word-of-mouth is so incredibly powerful. It inherently comes with a higher credibility value than perhaps any other form of marketing communication.
In the consumer’s mind, credibility is one of the truly essential elements. No Credibility = No Sale. Therefore, if your marketing is not in some incremental way proving credibility, it is not worth doing.
I would have to disagree. In fact, I love the Venus commercials. They tell me that I am a goddess and ought to be treated as such. As a woman, that appeals to me. I want to be told that I’m great and thus deserve great things. I think the issue here may be the fact that you’re a man. This commercial wasn’t meant to target you. It was meant to target women, and I think they did a good job.
You say that credibility cannot be assert- only proven. I highly disagree. I used to sit on hiring committees for a large organization. We would list a few qualities we wanted in the person for the position. When a candidate saw that list and came in and listed all of those things as their qualifications, the committee would get excited and think they found the right person. Credibility is best when proven over time, but that does not mean that it cannot be asserted. In general, people believe what they hear. If I say something so many times, people will start to believe it even if it isn’t true. However, that doesn’t mean that it can’t be disproven later. I think asserting things is very powerful and is a huge start on the road of credibility.