The limits of evidence-based marketing

[Zach Watson]

I know it’s a little long but I think it is a good topic after all of the threads about how Landscape Architecture is a profession that is fading away, (which I don’t believe)  Read and see what you think.  The words come from Seth Godin over at Seth Godin’s Blog.

 

That’s what most of us do. We present facts and proof and expect a rational consumer/voter/follower/peer to make an intelligent decision on what’s better.

That’s how science works. Thesis, test, evidence, conclusion. All testable and rational.

Here’s the conversation that needs to happen before we invest a lot of time in evidence-based marketing in the face of skepticism: “What evidence would you need to see in order to change your mind?”

If the honest answer is, “well, actually, there’s nothing you could show me that would change my mind,” you’ve just saved everyone a lot of time. Please don’t bother having endless fact-based discussions.

[Apple tried to use evidence to persuade IT execs and big companies to adopt the Macs during the 80s. Ads and studies that proved the Mac was easier and cheaper to support. They failed. It was only the gentle persistence of storytelling and the elevation of evangelists that turned the tide.]

What would you have to show someone who believes men never walked on the moon? What evidence would you have to proffer in order to change the mind of someone who is certain the Earth is only 5,000 years old? If they’re being truthful with you, there’s nothing they haven’t been exposed to that would do the trick. I was talking to someone who has a body of artistic work I respect a great deal. He explained to me his notion that the polio vaccine was a net negative, that it didn’t really work and that more people have been hurt by it than helped.

I tried evidence. I showed him detailed reports from the Gates Foundation and from the WHO and from other sources. No, he said, that’s all faked, promoted by the pharma business. There was no evidence that would change his mind.

Of course, evidence isn’t the only marketing tactic that is effective. In fact, it’s often not the best tactic. What would change his mind, what would change the mind of many people resistant to evidence is a series of eager testimonials from other tribe members who have changed their minds. When people who are respected in a social or professional circle clearly and loudly proclaim that they’ve changed their minds, a ripple effect starts. First, peer pressure tries to repress these flip-flopping outliers. But if they persist in their new mindset, over time others may come along. Soon, the majority flips. It’s not easy or fast, but it happens.

That’s why it’s hard to find people who believe the earth is flat. That’s why political parties change their stripes now and then. It wasn’t that the majority reviewed the facts and made a shift. It’s because people they respected sold them on a new faith, a new opinion.

[Thomas J. Johnson]

In science, the acceptance of new ideas follows a predictable, four-stage sequence. In Stage 1, skeptics confidently proclaim that the idea is impossible because it violates the Laws of Science. This stage can last from years to centuries, depending on how much the idea challenges conventional wisdom. In Stage 2, skeptics reluctantly concede that the idea is possible, but it is not very interesting and the claimed effects are extremely weak. Stage 3 begins when the mainstream realizes that the idea is not only important, but its effects are much stronger and more pervasive than previously imagined. Stage 4 is achieved when the same critics who used to disavow any interest in the idea begin to proclaim that they thought of it first. Eventually, no one remembers that the idea was once considered a dangerous heresy.

 

Personally, I’m a skeptic. I question everything. If someone wants you to believe something, they have a motive for changing your mind. What is their motivation? Are they producing data or “evidence” that is intended to align you with their product (sales), mindset(group/religion) or agenda(political/social action)? Data and evidence is also highly subjective. Like statistics, data can be manipulated to produce the desired affect. Information and physical evidence can be cropped, framed, enhanced and omitted, just like photo-manipulation. So the question remains, “what are you sellin’?”

[Tanya Olson]

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell is a great read on this exact subject. In it he writes about why people believe what they believe, buy what they buy and how fads and belief-sets come in and out of fashion. He writes about everything from Paul Revere’s midnight ride (did you know there was another rider who failed to get the warning out to the same degree as Revere?) to the popularity of children’s programming; in essence how does marketing really work in the context of human psychology and group dynamics.

 

[Thomas J. Johnson]

Yeah, I would bet that there is a direct correlation between intelligence/life-experience/education and the effectiveness of marketing/advertising. i.e. it’s easier to influence the buying behavior / manipulate people of lower intelligence / less experience (children).

This is one reason why advertising for Landscape Architecture is so difficult, uneducated consumers don’t get it and you’re not going to convince them to spend their money on good design while people who appreciate our services will acknowledge the need and seek us out. There is a small window of opportunity between the two…  

[Zach Watson]

Thomas you touched on the area where I really feel that this passage is interesting.  While there are those in the personal residential sector who will higher a Landscape Architect to design their property, I find that we as a profession can have a greater influence is in the building of communities, and I’m not referring to traditional master plan residential communities.  The more that we can help a developer see the potential of a space and how it can improve the quality of their project, through both storytelling and numbers the better the chance that we have of influencing actual livable communities.  People buy a place to live or to have an office not just because it is the cheapest place but because subcutaneously they are also developing a story in their head about what the place is like that they are buying into.  

 

I don’t know maybe this is just the rambling of a college student who is living in an idealistic world, but from what I have seen of successful projects because of how people see and understand the story of a place, and as we can help the developer understand the place they are sinking their money into, I can’t help but think that it would improve the impression of their developments and then in turn make their projects more desirable.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

The biggest road block is that you are trying to sell to bigger developers who have actually built and sold quite a bit and have learned their own ideas of marketability/profitability through their own experience and profit/loss. Would it seem logical that they would put that aside and trust in the vision of people who have not actually done it?

 

Think how much you as a student believe strongly in your vision of how to make that developer’s project successful. Let’s flip the marketing angle from you marketing to the developer to him marketing to you. Are you willing to give up your vision, even if you have little to lose, if an experienced developer tells you it will not work and he knows a better way? Probably not. Why would there be a higher likelihood of him dropping what he believes based on his experiences with a lot to lose, because someone else with little to lose thinks he has a better idea?

 

I’m not saying he is right or you are wrong. I’m just saying that selling it is not easy.

 

Now let’s say that you have been involved in several very successful similar projects and he has seen those results while his projects did not do so well. He is now using his own experience to see the value in what you do and is now a viable market.

 

It is always your track record against the prospects experience. In order for you or me to have the opportunity to shape a project, someone else has to feel that they can relinquish that from themselves to us. That is the thing most people, myself included, never see coming when they start out in the design business.  

[Zach Watson]

Those are very good points and things that I have not thought of before.  It will be some things that I will have to think about and mull over for a while, but again I really appreciate the input.

 

What yous points do help me to see though is to how sprawl can be so ramped and spreads so quickly, especially here in PHX.  . Most of the developers are very well versed in single family development and know that it has been successful.  Even among many citizens here, their pov is that Phoenix is an outward city not an upward one, so even the citizens believe in the current building model.  So back to your point of, if they have seen success then why change the business model.   

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

They change their business model to adjust to regulation for one. Regulation does need to happen to one degree or another and you can definitely be involved in that either by career choice or by being an active citizen.

Another reason to change a business model is when the success stops happening, such as right now. This is a time when some lay low and some take risks to try something new to adjust to new situations. There has to be a perceived benefit to the risk rather than hope. Identify a new trend in behaviour that allows someone to supply a need that people are willing to pay for and off you go. I think that there is too much uncertainty for there to be any trends starting because the average person does not know what they are trying to adjust to. Until that happens, developers won’t have a criteria that they need to pay a designer to meet.

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