If you’ve entered a grocery store over the past decade or so, you’ve probably noticed that cashiers have become extremely specific with their small talk: As you place your groceries on the conveyor belt, he or she will invariably ask, “Did you find everything you were looking for?”
It’s a dopey question – one that almost beckons an Al Jaffee-inspired smart-ass reply: “Of course I found everything I was looking for! That’s why I came to the checkout line! Cuz if I didn’t find everything I was looking for… I’d still be in the aisles trying to find it. Pretty sure that’s how grocery stores work. Duh!!”
But there’s a secret reason why cashiers are instructed to ask this question (and no, it’s not because they want to help you find things). The reason is purely psychological: If you can answer YES to a question, you’re more likely to believe and accept the validity of your answer. Affirmatively answering a question can actually influence behavioral patterns. So, the grocery store hopes your brain will make the following cerebral connections: “Did I find everything I was looking for? Yes, I did. I came into this store needing vital things for myself and my family, and now I have everything I was looking for. This was a good visit!”
And thus, you feel better about the transaction and are more likely to be a repeat customer. (See how this works? And… did you answer YES to my question? Good!)
Interestingly, this strategy fails spectacularly when you overtly TELL a customer the answer. If a cashier said, “I’m so glad you found everything you were looking for!” the customer would instinctively get defensive and push back: “How do you know what I came in for?! You don’t know me!”
If we can’t reach the conclusion on our own, we’re less likely to believe it.
This brings us to one of the greatest marketing campaigns of recent memory: The Coors Lite Ice Train. I’m sure you’ve seen the commercials a few million-zillion times, but in case you haven’t, here’s the set-up: Thin, attractive, 20-something models are baking in the summer heat, on the verge of keeling over from sunstroke when a frosty Coors Light Train comes by, covering everything in snow, thus saving the day by lowering the temperature with delicious ice-cold Coors cans. (And the party ensued!)
It was an incredibly memorable marketing campaign. It moved a ton of product, grew the company’s value, and, by all metrics, was a huge, unqualified success.
But it also made zero sense: A can of Coors Light isn’t going to be any colder or hotter than any other drink in your refrigerator! Coors doesn’t control your fridge's temperature– neither does Budweiser, Miller, Guinness, Pepsi, Red Bull, or Coke. It’s a stupid, nonsensical marketing concept and an asinine way to differentiate your beverage from the competition.
Yet, it was enormously successful. Why?
Because Coors did market research, and one of the things its target-audience valued the most was having an ice-cold beer. Thus, Coors simply gave their audience what they wanted.
Coors spends vast amounts of money on its production facilities. The process of safely manufacturing and shipping beer is surprisingly hi-tech and complex, and if you worked at Coors, you’d probably find the process a helluva lot more interesting to talk about than the beer’s temperature when consumers drink it. But that’s not what their audience wanted to hear.
Sometimes, the best, most successful marketing campaigns are as simple as listening to what people ask for and then regurgitating it back to them.
If you’re already on the Trump Train or a member of Team MAGA, then you’re likely cognizant of many, many excellent reasons to support Trump over Biden. From financial reasons to military reasons to cultural reasons to judicial reasons, there’s no shortage of rationales for supporting the old 45 becoming the new 47. But there’s no need to overcomplicate it, either.
The American public wants a president with a pulse (which is not Biden). They want a president with courage under fire (not Biden). And they want a president who won’t be an object of pity when he meets world leaders or a rambling gaffe-machine (also not Biden).
The GOP will have lots to say at its convention, with many different groups to placate and deep-pocketed donors to woo. As PJ Media readers, you undoubtedly would love to hear all the policy plans in vivid detail. In fact, if the RNC’s fundamental goal was to market to you, then the convention should be stocked with all the juicy slabs of red meat that matter to MAGA-ites.
But if the key objective is to win in November, then the simplest path is to just give voters what they want. Don’t overanalyze it. Don’t overthink it. Just regurgitate it. And when you do, don’t tell voters what to think; simply set up the argument so they can reach the conclusion on their own.
Simple isn’t bad; the KISS strategy (not the dreadfully overrated band, but the acronym "Keep It Simple, Stupid") really does work. Simple, direct messaging rings registers – and generate electoral landslides.
Even if it’s as simple as promising a can of cold beer.
It’s a counterintuitive strategy to most conservatives because conservatism, at its heart, is a specific ideology with very specific beliefs. If your attraction to conservatism was originally based on ideology, then your predisposition is to frame political arguments as a battle of ideas. Even today, conservatives have a default setting of making everything a philosophical debate. (Democrats don’t have this issue because American liberalism is a muddier, less cohesive ideology. Democratic voters are more like a hodgepodge coalition of special interest groups – with multitudes of differing objectives – and their only common denominator is that the Democratic Party is their vehicle to advance their goals.)
An assassin’s bullet permanently changed the trajectory of the 2024 campaign. Republican messaging must change with it. Now’s not the time for policy or philosophy but for competency, unity, success, and renewal.
Don’t give the public what you want. Give them what they want.
Because it’s actually the best way to get what you want.
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