I spend a lot of time thinking these days; more so than doing. I try to make sure it’s not stinkin’ thinkin’ but thoughtful, useful ideas that will make our clients, our own business and our world better.
One of the biggest questions for me (and I’m sure for our clients) is how best to reach that target audience, whether for us or our clients. This is not a new quest for me. I’ve thought about this question for years.
In the mid-80s I called on an oilfield services company who manufactured a downhole tool for use during the offshore boom. We talked for a while and I began to offer up suggestions on potential marketing tools – a brochure, a trade show, an ad in World Oil or Offshore.
He stopped me in my tracks and asked, “How much does it cost to run a TV ad in the Super Bowl?” To which I replied “A lot, but why would you want to run there?” He said, “The folks that are going to be ordering my tool aren’t reading any of the trade magazines, but I guarantee you they’ll be watching the Super Bowl.”
That completely changed my way of thinking about putting yourself in the mind of the person buying or ordering your product; and, how do you get there, especially with so many messages bombarding us each and every day.
Again, many years later, I was sitting in a traffic jam (a pretty regular occurrence) on I-610 north in Houston and had plenty of time to think. I looked up and saw a billboard staring me in the face. I can’t remember the company or product but I remember I had no choice but to see that billboard.
At our Monday morning staff meeting, I asked our staff which of the media are you guaranteed to get a person’s attention. We went around the room (with my response in parentheses): someone said print (I said print’s declining); someone said TV (no, TiVO, Netflix or Hulu); someone said radio (no, Sirius XM and Spotify); someone said email (no, spam filters and bad headlines); someone said direct mail (no, mail gets pitched).
I mentioned outdoor as the only place you can be assured of capturing someone’s attention.
This was not lost on us at Foster Marketing. Many years ago (when you could), we sent a two-by-four board in the mail with the following story burned into the board:
“After hitching his mule to the plow and finding the mule wouldn’t pull, the seasoned farmer stepped around with a two-by-four and smacked the mule.
When asked why he whooped his mule the farmer replied, “I love this ol’ mule. He works hard all day long. But sometimes, I first have to get his attention.”
It’s no different today except the techniques are much more sophisticated than the use of a two-by-four. So sophisticated, in fact, that companies are using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to literally target folks without their permission. That’s what Facebook did with Cambridge Analytica. That’s what Twitter has done with Russian election trolls.
“The way to win in Silicon Valley now is by figuring out how to capture human attention. How do you manipulate people’s deepest psychological instincts, so you can get them to come back?” said Tristan Harris, a former design ethicist at Google who has since become one of Silicon Valley’s most influential critics.
The proliferation of artificial intelligence, Harris said, creates an asymmetric relationship between platforms and users. “When someone uses a screen, they don’t really realize they’re walking into an environment where there are 1,000 engineers on the other side of the screen who asymmetrically know way more about their mind [and] their psychology, have 10 years of experience about what’s ever gotten them to click and then use AI prediction engines to play chess against that person’s mind.”
I read about this on a blog by Bruce Turkel in which he chastised Google on their latest innovation, an assistant that’s able to make calls to schedule appointments while speaking in a nearly flawless human voice replete with “ums” and “ahs.” At no point during Google’s presentation did Google’s software reveal it isn’t human — sparking a debate about ethics and consent.
According to the Los Angeles Times, a few days after the release, “Google reversed course by saying explicitly that the service, known as Google Duplex, would include a disclosure that it’s not a person.
“The concern that people would be duped by Google’s new feature underscores the urgency for society to determine what kind of relationship it wants with its artificial aids as technology companies get closer to traversing the so-called uncanny valley. That’s a term used to describe the gulf between a robot or software that has just enough imperfections to raise skepticism and another that’s indistinguishable from a human.”
Yikes, that’s scary! The AI bot may say “please” and “thank you” and in general may be more polite than some folks we deal with, but until I learn more, I think I’ll stick with the two-by-four (more on AI in an upcoming newsletter).
Foster Marketing is here to help you get the attention of your target audience. Contact us at 337-235-1848 or visit us online at fostermarketing.com.