One Trick That Every Marketer Needs To Know

The Marketing Post
Jul 21, 2017 · 4 min read

Authored by Dr. Seth Hawking. Now a Professor of Marketing, Seth has over 30 years of marketing experience consulting some of the world’s largest brands and agencies.


You’re at college, and (of course) you’re low on cash. So, you sign up for a research experiment on memory, which offers a handsome $30 payout.

You get there with one other volunteer. She is given the ‘operator’ role, meaning she’ll be testing your memory, and you’re her subject.

The researcher is looking to see how pain affects memory. In order to check this, you’re asked to memorize sequences of numbers. You spend a few minutes learning the sequence and then you’re invited into the main room.

In the room is an electric chair. The researcher explains that the chair is only able to administer small shocks and no part of the experiment will cause lasting damage.

You’re even told you can drop out now, but this is just a college experiment. How bad can it be?

You get hooked up to the chair.

Your fellow volunteer (the operator) is instructed to administer a small electric shock every time you get an answer wrong.

What’s the catch? The voltage doubles with each incorrect answer.

-

You start well. No mistakes. The easiest $30 you’ve ever made.

Then comes your first error. 5 volts.

You feel a small prickly sensation in your arm.

You hardly even flinch.

1 minute later and you make another mistake. 10 volts.

This shock sends a noticeable, but pleasant tingle up and down your arm.

Another mistake and it’s 20 volts. Nothing you can’t handle, but it’s beginning to hurt.

A couple of mistakes later and 80 volts.

Now it’s painful. The currents rips up and down your arm sending spasms up your neck. It’s far from enjoyable but you want to plough through expecting it to be over soon.

160 volts.

You’re struggling to hear the operator over the sound of your teeth grinding together. You decide enough is enough, you say you want out. But the operator keeps asking you the following question. You say you can’t go on, but she pauses, waits to listen to the researcher and administers another shock.

320 volts.

White hot heat races through your chest, burning everything from your stomach to your neck. Twitching. Shaking. Dripping in sweat you struggle speak. You only see a faint white haze in the room. Faintly you hear the operator ask another question, but you can’t move your mouth.

Taking your lack of response for an incorrect answer, she again administers a shock.

640 volts.

You’re out.

The unbearable heat ripping up through arm and pounding onto your skull knocks you cold. In the short moments before collapsing you wonder why on earth your fellow volunteer wouldn’t stop.

-

This nightmarish experiment certainly sounds like horror fiction, but it’s not.

These were real studies carried out in the 60s. The only difference? The volunteer receiving the volts was a paid actor. They didn’t receive one ounce of pain, they just acted as if they did.

So why on earth did a seemingly normal second volunteer continue to administer shocks?

Stanley Milgram, who conducted these experiments in the 60s, used the studies to prove the power of authority.

He wanted to see if seemingly normal people would administer harmful shocks to others just because a person of authority told them to. Turns out they will.

In the first set of experiments, 65% of participants administered the highest possible shock. The study was repeated by Thomas Blass, who found in one study that 91% of participants would administer the highest shocks.

Clearly, we’re deeply wired to accept and act on what those in authority tell us.

What can marketers learn?

We routinely listen to authority. Whether it’s consciously or subconsciously, we will always be influenced by someone in authority.

For marketers the lesson is clear.

To convince your audience, have your message come from authority.

Whether its a respected research agency, an influencer, a well known client or even a doctor, authority maters.

It sounds obvious, but it’s too often forgotten. Many startups make lofty claims about their latest idea, but fail to realize how little it means coming from them.

The best use PR, influencer marketing, and analyst relations to develop a constant conveyer belt of positive claims coming from those in the know.

Wield your marketing with this idea, and you’ll be shocked at the results.

Know of some other examples? Let us know in the comments.

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