How to Sell Time Travel Convincingly
“I guess you guys aren’t ready for that yet. But your kids are gonna love it.” These immortal lines are spoken by Marty McFly in the time-honored classic Back to the Future upon his premature introduction of the heavy metal guitar solo to the 1950’s, but the statement holds some truth for other novel products that far outstrip the current ideas in the marketplace or in the minds of consumers when they first appear on the scene. Digital voice assistants and AI. Personal computers. The telephone. Genetic testing. Et cetera.
One of the greatest examples is commercial air travel — an instance when humans crossed into the bounds of the seemingly impossible. Framing the challenge faced by future-focused products benefits from a little academic digging. Social theorists describe a phenomenon known as the “Risk Society Thesis,” which argues that:
“Risk, as a mode of thought, is cultivated and directed toward some facets of social experience, but not others. Though risk can be associated with any product (after all, any small object might strike the vigilant as a choking hazard), it becomes especially salient when they are entwined within complex systems of technical expertise. Anxieties can grow all the more acute when these systems harness the energies and powers of otherwise volatile forces.”
When it comes to volatile forces, not much can top hurtling hundreds of miles per hour, thousands of feet in the air. So how did the marketers of the 1920’s onward solve this problem?
Fight and Flight
They definitely faced an uphill battle. Early air travel was pricey, and the miraculous nature of flight proved to be a mixed blessing. People viewed flight as a daring, barnstorming and risky adventure, which made selling its mundane functions as a form of business or leisure travel difficult, and heightened public fixation on crashes and accidents. To redefine the game, they started by tackling safety gently, balancing portrayals of fear as irrational with nods to their safety efforts.
Airlines collectively agreed to avoid certain subtle visual indicators of danger (mountains, nighttime flying, large bodies of water, and airplane maintenance) in all their ads, and lo and behold, consumer attitudes started to thaw.
But another obstacle remained: Women. Market research showed wives and mothers were particularly concerned by the safety risks of flight for their significant others and children. Madison Avenue agencies realized that they could succeed by making the customers’ concerns about family their own. They created programs that allowed husbands to bring their wives on free flights, and rolled out ads emphasizing how air travel could save time for family travel, and allow more productive workdays, leading to monetary benefits at home. It worked.
Hold the Phone
As omnipresent as they are now, telephones were a much different animal when they first debuted. Some preachers felt the phone was the instrument of the Devil and phone lines were stolen or sabotaged; people legitimately feared the presence of ghosts on the line; The New York Times worried about people becoming unable to hear through their right ear after extended use, and that talking on the phone promoted incivility. It was a chilly reception, to say the least.
“The general use of the telephone, instead of promoting civility and courtesy, is the means of the fast dying out of what little we have left.”
—The New York Times, 1907
How did advertisers get citizens to return their call (to action)? They fought the battle on two fronts. To banish anxieties about the occult, they emphasized telephones as tools of industry and progress, with ads showcasing their technical specs and quality. Combatting the “incivility” issue requiring tacking more domestic, with marketing placing phones as tool of connection between loved ones, and even entire communities.
By understanding the motivators of their customers’ fears, phone companies were able to save the telephone from going the way of the telegraph.
Breaking the Ice
One invention too ahead of its time was, believe it or not, ice cubes. Frederic Tudor was a New Englander in the late 1700’s who spent decades trying to sell the ice he harvested from frozen ponds. He was laughed at by the public for an 1806 expedition that brought 130 tons of ice to the tropical island of Martinique, where it amused locals, but failed to find a use before it started to melt, forcing Tudor to turn it all into ice cream he sold at a loss.
How did Tudor finally break the ice? As with the other examples, by making his product relevant to potential buyers with a two-pronged approach. He realized there were distinct consumer groups that had use for ice, but in different capacities. By heavily promoting the novelty of cold drinks in major cities around the world, and the usefulness of cooling ice to physicians, he was soon selling to markets from Louisiana to India, acquiring the nickname “Ice King” along the way.
Back to the Present
We’d like to think we’ve advanced in the modern day, but while you may be pals with Alexa, Siri, and an assortment of chatbots, will markets be equally accepting of the AI driving their cars? Here are some lessons you can take from the past to guide your new R&D to customer adoption.
Walk in your customers’ shoes
As marketing pioneers in the industries above learned, you can’t sell consumers on what a product is — you have to sell them on what it ideally is to them. That can’t be accomplished without deeper insight into how they think.
Don’t build bridges when you can swim
You can fight against consumer perceptions by tackling challenges head-on, but it’s a costly strategy. Observe the paucity of airline ads showing a crash, followed by “but this won’t happen with us!” By learning existing pathways in consumer thought, you can guide your marketing to use these subtle cues to create the message you want, instead of hammering it in against their will.
Appreciate the finer things in life
On that previous note, it’s important to focus on the finer details that subtly, but potently shape consumer perception of your product. Alexa has a soothing voice; telephones are ergonomically designed; and even the earliest airlines soon added flight attendants. Get these subtle cues to have a big impact in your favor.
The Wizards behind the Curtain
As this historical dive hopefully illustrated, the initial fears, skepticism, or doubts of the public can be overcome, if you can find the right method to persuade them. No (non-psychic) marketing team can possibly come up with all the applications for a product, or predict the public reaction, but there is a group that has all of these answers: the consumers themselves. If you can get a look at the consumer mindset before a disastrous marketing campaign takes place — one of the key reasons for conducting market research — you’ll be well on the path to success.
Hannibal Brooks is an an Insight Associate at Olson Zaltman, a market research firm applying scientific methodology to the consumer experience.
