FEAR BASED MARKETING IS WHAT YOU ARE MISSING OUT ON : PUN INTENDED
Fear is primitive. It’s one of the four main emotions and very strong as well. That’s why when we talk about God loving we even talk about God fearing. Fear is that powerful. We all have survival instincts instilled in us and why wouldn’t marketers prey on that? Okay, prey might be a bit harsh. Let’s go with ‘rely’. To understand Fear Based Marketing, let’s look at som
e examples.
PANIC SELLING-
Panic Selling happens when there’s an increase in the sale of a product because of fear of a decline in the market value. In Panic Selling, there’s a fear of loss. This kind of fear-based marketing is seen more so in investments and real estate.
These kinds of sales begin a vicious cycle. When in a market, one slashes the prices the other automatically gets on guard and reduces the prices as well out of fear of competitors.
Fear of loss can also be seen in the ‘Buy it before it’s gone’ strategies. It’s actually a neuromarketing technique called ‘Framing’. They corner the customers into the frame where they are made to believe that they are missing out on a lovely bargain. That fear of loss gets them ready to actually buy the product even if they don’t need it.
F.O.M.O.-
Fear is one of the strongest motivation drives. Ever heard of FOMO? It stands for Fear Of Missing Out. That’s one fear basically everyone encashes upon.
Especially technology. If you take smartphones as an example. Every year they come up with updated versions of the same phones and convince the users to buy them or else-they’ll miss out on something better. Even their software updates which come with the launch of the new versions of the phone too, don’t work on older phones after a while. So, out of the fear of missing out, they are able to market their products well. Really well. Sale of smartphones is at an ultimate high. Always.
F.O.M.O has encashed upon this fear and came up with a social proof marketing platform that increases sales and conversions by showing customer interactions.
Even dating websites they work solely on the basis of individual’s fear of being alone. And you do know how well the online dating websites work.
FEAR BASED MARKETING EXAMPLE 1 : INSURANCE
We all are very much aware of insurance, thanks to the gazillion insurance calls we get. Insurance companies focus on a need that almost always bears fruit and what is that fruit? Fear of death. Nothing else can trump that.
FEAR BASED MARKETING EXAMPLE 2: ANTIVIRUS
Where would anti-virus companies be without the fear of antivirus? There are theories that say the antivirus and antimalware companies actually create the virus and malware to instill the fear in the users and then they market their product as a savior and voila! product sold.
FEAR BASED MARKETING EXAMPLE 3: MEDICINE
Alright this one is a little blown out but Pharmaceutical companies do sell medicines through the fear of disease. Not just medicines, vaccines as well. Anything that involves health is of great concern. Marketers rely on this fear and market their medicines.
Steroids and all the other performance enhancer suppliers make use of fear of falling short.
FEAR BASED MARKETING EXAMPLE 4: ANTI-BACTERIAL SOAP / SANITISER
Anti Bacterial Soap kills germs more efficiently than regular soaps. Haven’t we all seen those advertisements? Yes, the market their product out of fear of germs. God save the clean freaks or the anti-bacterial soap companies are going to make millions in money.
Some people may argue that they are not creating a fear in them but just activating fear that’s already there. The fear that was backseat is coming in the front, that’s it.
Do you know what ‘halitosis’ means? It means bad breath. That’s how Listerine became a household name for mouthwash. It instilled a fear of an unknown term. Companies rely on using complex terms which are often synonyms of basic terms and since the customers are unaware of what it actually means they fall for it and buy whatever they are selling to prevent the hell that the unknown term is likely to bring them.
FEAR BASED MARKETING EXAMPLE 5: DEADLINES
Haven’t you all seen multiple marketers boasting their deadlines- knock knock , it’s not all real, but I can promise our is , if you checked it out . it’s mostly shown on our blog main page.
FEAR BASED MARKETING EXAMPLE 6: EXCLUSIVE CLUBS
Tell me about the last time you skipped the line because you were travelling in business class or was it having the exclusive credit card that made you feel special .
FEAR BASED MARKETING EXAMPLE 7 : CARS
This is one of the 8,470,000th videos of car crash test out there that elaborately explains how safe you are in the car .
It’s great that they are doing it . Thank god . But it also sells the customers on their safety features.
FEAR LEADS TO ACTION
Fear does lead to action, now making this action in your favor depends entirely on how you present the feature. Or else they just might go the other way. That’s why button is called CTA ( Call to action ) .
Has marketing really gone over the edge, to the other side, to the dark side? Is that your way to go about marketing? Have we gone so deep into making money that we are encashing on people’s fears? There’s no denying that fear increases sales but do we know where to stop?
Fear based marketing is a gimmick. The marketers use the fear that is instilled in humans to their advantage.
I can say from personal experience that fear works, I still don’t sit too close to the television out of fear of going blind. A fear my mother put in my head when I was a kid watching Dexter’s lab too close to the television. I no longer sit close to the television but I do have big nerdy glasses. So how effective is fear based marketing in reality?
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