The Science of Communicating & Marketing Your Business

Okay, not just me. These are things NextStage's researchers are trained to do as well and they report to me often. It's one of the reasons our tool set has grown as robust as it has, understands cultural and geographic diversities, and so on.

So I didn't think much more of "...the most reliable network" until I was watching TV later that night and saw the cellular provider commercial claiming "...fewest dropped calls."

Oh, my goodness, they couldn't be more different. The "most reliable network" is intended for people who don't like risk, the "fewest dropped calls" is for people who accept risk. If something is reliable then there is little to no risk involved. The "most reliable" anything is a statement of trust towards a goal, the "fewest" anything is a statement of trust away from a problem, concepts I wrote about in Using Sound and Music on Websites and Making Good on Past Promises - Music Use on the Web.

The use of two value propositions to market the same product or service isn't something new. Anybody remember the "Less Filling or Great Taste" ads for some beer (I forget the brand therefore this campaign failed) a while back? Basically, there was one product with two value propositions. The two value propositions, as in the cellular provider "most reliable" and "fewest dropped calls" placements, are designed to bring a single product into two consumer demographics.

I know you'll be shocked to learn that NextStage does lots of research in the areas of consumer risk acceptance and risk avoidance, and consumer psychologic profiling.

Anyway, nicely done, no matter which way you go towards or away from it.

Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.

I'll be speaking at the San Francisco April '07 Emetrics Summit on Quantifying and Optimizing the Human Side of Online Marketing on May 7, 2007. Come on by and say hello.