Author: Robert
Cialdini
- Publisher:
Random House Books
- Publication:
2016
The most valuable commodity of the 21st century is
attention.
Although attributed to investor and philanthropist
Esther Dyson, this insight is subject of Robert Cialdini’s new book
Pre-suasion. ‘Pre-suasion’ is the art of influence by capturing and
channeling attention. Rather than seek to change what people think (difficult),
change what they think about instead by directing their
attention (easy). The changed focus of our attention primes, anchors, frames
and sets the agenda for our subseqeunt choices. Smart influence happens before
any message is sent.
Pre-suasion may be controversial for
traditional communicators – it argues that influence is primarily a game of
attention and association, not persuasion and argument. But Robert
Cialdini has pedigree in the field of communications. He is author of
one of the most influential business books of all time –
Influence,
a 1984 book that is still #1 bestselling book on consumer behaviour on Amazon.
Whilst
Influence focuses on what to
say to influence consumers, distilling the findings of scientific research
into six universal messages,
Pre-suasion focuses on when to
influence. And that time is before people notice they are being
influenced.
Pre-suasion is built around the ideas of anchoring and priming.
Anchoring – also known as the focusing effect/focusing illusion – is an
attentional bias that means we systematically rely too heavily on the
first piece of information offered (the “anchor”) when making decisions.
Priming refers to how our attention and responses are systematically biased by
what we’ve just been exposed to (exposure to one stimulus influences the
response to another stimulus). Together priming and anchoring mean that
whatever first captures our attention is seen as important, causal and
directs our response.
- If you
want people to buy a box of expensive chocolates, first arrange for them
to write down a number that’s much larger than the price of the
chocolates.
- If you
want people to choose a bottle of French wine, first expose them to French
background music before they decide.
- If you
want people to agree to try an untested product, first inquire whether
they consider themselves adventurous.
- If you
want to convince people to select a highly popular item, we can begin by
showing them a scary movie.
- If you
want people to choose a more expensive but more comfy option, first show
them fluffy clouds
- If you
want people to feel warmly toward you, hand them a hot drink.
- If you
want people to be more helpful to you, first have them look at photos of
individuals standing close together.
- If you
want people to be more achievement oriented, first provide them with an
image of a runner winning a race.
- If you
want people to make careful assessments, first show them a picture of
Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker.
Priming Associations
Do you know the positive words and imagery that people
associate with your category and category-related goals. No? Well you’ll
need to find out in order to become proficient in the art of pre-suasion. For
example, if you want people to improve performance, first expose them to images
and words associated with
performance (
win,
attain,
succeed,
master).
These words and images are ‘primes’ that have ‘associative
coherence’ with desired outcomes, and ready our mind for an associated
response. For instance, telephone fund-raisers
raised 60% more
money when their script sheet contained an image of a runner
winning at race. We may diss motivation posters as cheesy but they work.
Likewise, young women do better on science, maths, and leadership tasks if
assigned to rooms with cues (photos, for example) of women known to have
mastered the tasks.
More generally, by embedding evocative associations in an
initial framing message, you can prime how people respond to a subsequent
message. For example, Stanford University researchers published two version of
a news story about crime rates with just one word change – the soaring crime
was either described as a ‘ravaging beast’ or ‘ravaging virus’. When
asked for their preferred solution – either catching and caging criminals or
deal with underlying ‘unhealthy’ causes, those who saw the beast version tended
to recommend the catch and cage solution, whilst those who saw the virus
version recommended dealing with unhealthy causes (poverty, unemployment). The
associative coherence between the descriptive metaphor and preferred solution
directed preference.
The practical upshot. Map positive associations – word
associations and sensory associations (sounds, tastes, scents, touch and
sights) related to category goals and benefits and use these positive
association to pre-suade by priming.
Embedding Associations
Pre-suasion is the art and science of capturing and
channelling attention. The big marketing challenge in a cluttered world is
capturing attention. So whilst your may know the associations that you want to
use to prime your audience’s mind, you first need to capture attention.
How do you do that? Pre-suasion lists 6 attention grabbing strategies
- The
Sexual. Sexual stimuli have a pervasive power to command our
attention, and influence our action, but the influence is more subtle and
selective than we may think. For example, a recent field experiment
found that only 20% of men would agree to help a woman after having been
asked for directions to Martin Street, but 36.7% agreed to help after
having been asked for directions to Valentine
Street. The men had been primed with romantic associations, and
behaved more chivalrously. On the other hand, only
8% of top advertising campaigns use sex to sell.
Why? Because sex only sells when the product is linked to sexuality
(cosmetics, perfume, form-fitting clothing). Sex doesn’t sell soda, soap
powder or white goods because there is no strong association in the mind
of the audience between sex and the product.
- The
Threatening. Threats to our personal safety or the safety of
those we care about has attention grabbing power. It’s arguably what
attention is for – being alert to threats. Threat and fear appeals, such
as in tobacco
packaging, have been shown to
be pre-suasively effective, when they are followed by
clear instructions on how to avoid the threat. Perhaps more interesting
from an advertising perspective is when the pre-suasion and persuasion are
uncoupled. Research carried
out by Cialdini and evolutionary psychologist Vlad Griskevicius found that
the perception of threat opens us up to messages to be part of a group
(where there is safety and strength in numbers). In this experiment people
people responded favourably to an ad for SF Museum of Modern Art that
stressed its popularity (“Visited by over a million people each year)
after having seen a violent movie, but not after seeing a romantic
movie. After the romantic movie, that ad that worked best emphasised
distinctiveness of museum attendance (“Stand out from the crowd”). Once
again, what happened before influenced how a subsequent message was
received. The implication is ads and products that help people stand out
will perform better when placed in or after romantic content, whilst ads
and products that help people fit in will perform better in or after violent
or threatening content.
- The
Different. In order to survive, we need to be aware of changes
to our environment – and whenever we first register a change around us, we
have an ‘orienting response’ that involves diverting our attention to it.
If something is distinctive, out of the ordinary is stands out, it grabs
our attention. And because it grabs our attention, the importance of what
makes it distinctive is amplified. This attention-grabbing capacity of the
distinctive can accentuate the influence subsequent messages. For
example, an experiment at NorthWestern involving
a side by side online comparison of two sofas, one with comfy cushions,
and the other with sturdy cushions resulted in a 58 percent to 42 percent
preference for the sturdy cushion, but when two extra sofas with sturdy
cushions were added to the comparison, preference for the different and
distinctive sofa with comfy cushions increase to 77%. Bottom line, you
don’t just have to Think Different, you have to be
Different.
- The
Self-Relevant. Our attention appears to be honed to information
about us, or relevant to us. From the background chatter at a party,
we have an uncanny knack of hearing someone mentioning our name (cocktail party
effect). In personal health, a message that is
self-relevant because it has been tailored to or references us is more
likely to capture our attention, interest, be memorised and even acted
upon. In fact, simply using the word you rather than ‘people’ may
boost self-relevance
- The
Unfinished. Our attention and memory shuts down once a problem is
solved or an action completed. In contrast our attention remains
drawn to unfinished business. The idea that people remember uncompleted or
interrupted tasks better than completed tasks is known as the Zeigarnik
Effect (after Blumer Zeigarnik – a student of psychologist Kurt
Lewin). This explains why we remember stuff – including
ads – better if they are unfinished, because our attention
will remain drawn to it as we crave cognitive closure. A recent
Facebook experiment shows the capacity of the unfinished
to command our attention. College women viewed the Facebook profiles
of four male students who had previously seen their profiles and were told
whether the male students were attracted to them a lot, no more than
average, or not told at all. As was predicted by ‘reciprocity
principle’ (we like others who like us), the women were more attracted to
the men that liked them a lot. But they were even more attracted to the
men for whom they didn’t know. We may crave closure, but we can be
attracted to the unfinished.
- The
Mysterious. Mysteries intrigue and captivate our attention. Good
writers and teachers know this, and will structure what they share as
mysteries to be solved. They will begin by posing the subject as a
mystery, and then deepen the mystery with surprising observations.
Then, they’ll tease the audience by considering and discounting plausible
but incorrect explantations, and then provide a clue to the real
explanation. Only then will they resolve the mystery, and draw the
implications. Whilst Cialdini does not share experimental evidence of the
effectiveness of mystery at capturing, he points to his career and success
has been built on systematically using it.
Bringing it altogether
The opportunity for marketers is to combine the embedding of
associations in pre-suasive communication, with the embedding of influence cues
form Cialdini’s Influence in messages. This one-two of influence –
pre-suasion then persuasion – provides marketers with a powerful communications
framework that moves beyond mere argument.
In doing so, the promise is that you turbo-charge your influence.
Combining the two steps to influence – Cialdini provides a process for
non-rational influence.
- Start
with Pre-suasion. Capture and channel attention with by
embedding positive category (goal) associations in attention appeals (The
Sexual, The Threatening, The Different, The Self-Relevant, The Unfinished,
The Mysterious)
- Then
use Liking (The obligations of friendship, or of being
swayed by people you like) and Reciprocity(The obligation to
give back) to establish rapport and cultivate a positive association with
you as a communicator – in a meaningful, unexpected, and customized manner
- Now
use Authority (We follow those we view as experts)
and Social Proof (The power of consensus, doing what we
feel others are also doing) to reduce perceptions of uncertainty and risk
- Finally,
use Consistency (Need for personal alignment) and Scarcity (We
want what may not be available) to motivate action
Cialdini concludes by proposing a seventh message cue to the
six originally enumerated in Influence – Unity – we say yes to
‘we’ messages that appeal to a sense shared identity (genealogy or geography)
or shared activity (synchronicity, collaboration (including – co-creation)).
Naturally, sitting alongside Liking and Reciprocity in step 2 in the process of
influence, creating a sense of unity between communicator and audience
establishes rapport and positivity.
The Brand Genetics Take
We were not only pre-suaded by Pre-suasion, we
were persuaded by it too. It’s a fitting followup to the business
book on Influence. As an agency, we’ll be using pre-suasion techniques
to craft compelling insights and concepts, and to help brands
communicate more effectively. It’s perhaps true that Pre-suasion is
not quite as ‘neat’ as Influence insofar as it doesn’t
offer an off-the-peg solution to influence like the six (now seven)
evidence-based message cues. Pre-suasion requires
knowledge of the associations people make with the category and category goals,
and embedding these in pre-suasive communication that frames a subsequent message.
And that requires research. But for professional communicators, Pre-suasion is
a goldmine of evidence-based insight into the attentional biases that
influences our behaviour, and offer practical recommendation for how to
harness these biases. We unreservedly recommend Pre-suasion to
all branding and marketing professionals.
