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The Power of Verisimilitude

When I first learned the craft of copywriting several years ago I was fortunate enough to learn from one of the masters - Herschell Gordon Lewis. He had a concept that has stuck with me since then, partly because I like the word and partly because I like what the word means from a marketing standpoint. Verisimilitude. 

 

Verisimilitude means "like the truth," or as Lewis framed it "providing the appearance of truth." It's what copywriters strive to do, of course. And, in fact, if we don't convey "the truth" our brands are likely to suffer. The appearance of truth can relate to the product or service attributes we espouse, of course, but truth is conveyed in other ways as well.

 

I was thinking about this recently because of an email I received from a retail marketer. The subject line said:

 

"A reward for being our most loyal patrons."

 

That subject line did not have the appearance of truth. In fact, I had only made one prior purchase from this particular retailer. If I'm one of their "most loyal patrons" they must not be doing very well!

 

Don't get me wrong. I don't have anything against receiving special offers and am frequently enticed to make unnecessary purchases online specifically because of these offers! And, although I'm well aware that advertising copy is often filled with claims that may push the bounds of credibility, it does seem that if marketers are hoping to engage with their customers they should do it based on an accurate representation of the relationship.

 

Or maybe they just hit me on an off day...

 

What do you think? Have you received a communication from a marketer that failed to pass the verisimilitude test? If so, how did that lack of the "appearance of truth" affect your perception of that marketer?

 

Recommended Reading:

Do You Really Know Who Your Customers Are? Are You Sure?

I worked in a healthcare organization for about 10 years from 1996-2007. Back at that time the transition between referring to patients as "customers" was just emerging and it was fairly controversial. 


Marketing and administration favored the approach and logically it seemed to make some sense. But I can recall the debates, conflicts and consternation from clinical staff -- physicians and nurses -- about the use of this terminology.

 

At the time, I was firmly on the side of using the term "customer." After all, I had come from the marketing world with a background in the investor-owned utility industry and a private educational firm, in addition to experience growing up in a family-owned business, so the concept of "customer" was one I firmly identified with.

 

In hindsight, though,I think the debate should have been much more nuanced. Sometimes patients were, indeed, the customer -- but not that often really. 

An article I recently read in Harvard Business Review, 
"Choosing the Right Customer," got me thinking about this more recently. In the piece Robert Simons points out, for example, that pharmaceutical company giant Merck doesn't consider the patients who use the drugs they provide to be their customers. They don't even consider the physicians who prescribe the drugs to be their customers!

Who do they believe their customers really are? According to Simons, "research scientists in labs and universities around the world." These represent their primary customer. He goes on to strongly suggest that other companies reconsider who their "primary customer" really is and says: "...by not identifying one primary customer, companies that consider themselves 'customer focused' soon become anything but."

 

Interesting -- and very important -- point. As a Baldrige examiner I often review applications where the customer identified by the organization doesn't seem quite "right" to me. However, the way the process works, examiners are coached not to be "prescriptive." This means that it is not the examiner's role, for instance, to tell the company that they're focusing on the "wrong" target audience. It's up to them to decide.

 

Deciding appropriately, as Simons notes, makes a big difference. Do you think you really know who your customers are? What if you're wrong?


Read more here.

Does Contextualized Advertising Really Work, or is it a Waste of Time/Money? 


The older I get, the more I recognize the inevitable cycles that occur all around  me, from fashion trends to areas of marketing focus. (And, since I just had a birthday, getting older has been on my mind!)

 

It's the yin and yang of life I suppose; we naturally shift back and forth between preferences for one thing or another. And, it is likely true that there is nothing really "new" under the sun, just recycled or updated twists on things that have gone before.

 

Except, perhaps, in the world of online marketing. One of the latest trends--contextualized advertising--offers marketers the ability to almost "get inside the heads" of potential consumers to deliver messages to them based not only on places they've visited online, but for things that might be geographically or contextually relevant to them.


For instance. You're walking down the street on a hot summer day and you get a text message telling you about a great deal on ice cream at a shop that is now literally 10 steps away from you. Or, you're driving to a vacation destination and a special deal on a hotel at the next exit pops up. That's contextual advertising and it's all the rage right now. Although, of course, nobody quite knows yet whether it will really work and, importantly, whether it will really ever replace traditional advertising.

 

There was a very interesting piece in The Atlantic recently on the topic: Derek Thompson's "A Dangerous Question: Does Internet Advertising Work at All?" These sorts of provocative titles are always a great way to lure in readers and I was no exception. But his article was worth the read. In the piece he makes what I found to be a very interesting point. 

 

Read more here.

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Get the "Secret Sauce" Behind Successful LinkedIn Posts  

If you have a little pencil icon in your LinkedIn comment box, you have the ability to write long-form posts that could go viral--but only if you follow some important best practice tips. 

We analyzed the Top 100 long-form posts on LinkedIn to see what gave them traction and led to views ranging from about 500,000 to 2.7 million! Learn what we found and how you can apply these simple best practices to your own LinkedIn content development.

Volume: 6 - Issue: 9
 September 2014
Strat Comm logo
In This Issue
Verisimilitude: What it Means and Why It's Important
Do You Really Know Who Your Customers Are?
Does Contextualized Advertising Pay Off?
We're In the News! 





4 Surefire Ways to Win Back Customers With Email


Research Matters
Some recent news and  research you may be interested in--we were!