#kyle sergeant

[roadtosomewheregreat]

Dog Blog: Cheese

It’s been a day of confusion for the Little One – aka Molly.  My presence – walking from upstairs to down like the thought I need is located in some room, pretending to play a sport, and dancing to rock music because that’s an awesome thing to do – has caused Molly to embrace and also shun me.  When I get up to move, she wants to know where.  When she finds out where, and realizes we’re not going to be goofing off, she leaves me like we just had a horrible third date and all her assumptions from date one have been validated.  Or she just ignores me entirely.  Seems the Little One has her own life to live when no one is around.  That is, unless you’re making a sandwich and cheese is involved.

I made two sandwiches today: Tuna fish and ham and cheese.  In preparing both, I opened the refrigerator door, no one around, and soon found myself the apple of the Little One’s eye.  Why? Molly loves cheese and equates “refrigerator opening” with “I’m going to get to eat cheese if I act cute, adorable, sad, lonely, like Tiny Tim.”

Both of my sandwich meals had cheese incorporated into them.  Three and a half pieces of cheese complimented my tuna sandwich.  Molly got the other half.  She nudged my right leg for it.  See, you can try to ignore the white bundle of fury fun at your feet but once they nudge you and you look down - deep black eyes piercing into your heart and the realization that you’d donate if the beast just asked for it hitting you like the soft introduction of a fantastic scent – you’re about as useful as a Tomb Raider fan in front of Angelina Jolie.  So, yeah, Molly got half a piece of cheese because she nudged me.

The ham and cheese sandwich scenario was different: Molly felt she didn’t need to nudge me; she’d already set the expectation with the tuna sandwich.  So when I finished making my sandwich and was about to put away the cheese my decision was met with a meek squeal.  When I imagine other sounds like it, I can only picture a baby seal off the coast of South Africa reaching shore while its mother was gobbled up by a Great White shark, leaving the baby to fend for itself within one of the cruelest situations mother nature has employed.  So, yeah, Molly got an entire piece of cheese that time.

[adv1679-blog]

Controlling Your Market With Reverse Psychology by Kyle Sergeant

Marketing and advertising are hard.  People don’t just flock to products.  They have to be convinced first.

We see over 2,000 marketing/advertising messages per day.  We don’t remember half of them.  For the most part, everything we see is just noise.  In order to get passed the noise and get heard, marketers/advertisers need to break through the barriers people have around themselves.

These individual barriers are the result of demographics (i.e. age, sex, education, geographic location, etc.) and psychographics (i.e. The way we feel about ourselves, the things we value, the things we do in our spare time).   One person might only buy green-alternative products, while another only buys brand names.  Someone could be price conscious, while another will spend and spend more (even if it’s on credit) just to maintain an affluent lifestyle.  So, if people are so different, can you still target more than one cluster?  And if so, how?

The answer is yes.  And one of the ways to do so is by using reverse psychology.

Reverse psychology was a term coined by critical theorists, Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno.  In their 1944 work, Dialectic of Enlightenment, Horkheimer and Adorno use the term “Culture Industry” to describe how cultural goods such as magazines and radio can be used to manipulate society into a state of passivity.  And it is this state that they believe demonstrates psychoanalysis in reverse. 

But does reverse psychology work?

Yes.

Reverse psychology works because it has great motivational strength on an individual’s personality.  Reverse psychology creates this motivation by fostering the emotional response known as reactance.

Reactance was defined by Jack Brehm in 1966 and is the negative reaction of an individual when a choice has been taken away from them.  When reactance is strong enough, an individual will try hard to restore the “threatened freedom.”  For marketers/advertisers, this implies that by understanding a targets possible “threatened freedoms” you can better craft a message founded in reverse psychology to get your target to act accordingly.  You just need to remember to understand your target market first so that you can craft a message that is blatant, unwanted, or coercive.

Examples of reverse psychology in action:

“Dear sixteen year old me.”

Lady Gaga

Dr. Pepper

Saving the Troy Public Library

Little Caesars

West Virginia Tourism

Ritz-Carlton

 Conclusion:

Convincing people to try your product and/or service is difficult.  But many tools/theories exist that can help a marketer/advertiser reach and influence a targeted group of people.  One of these tools is reverse psychology.  By utilizing reverse psychology you challenge an individual’s beliefs passed a certain point, gaining the individual’s interest which will send them along a consumer journey to discover your product/service – something you’ve wanted all along.          

[roadtosomewheregreat]

Success is defined by you.

The work you need to do to succeed is chosen and planned by you.

The execution is up to you.

Success can be as big as you want it to be.

[roadtosomewheregreat]

FEAR NUMBER SEVENTEEN: Not taking notes

Notes seemed tedious back in university when the professor chimed off fact after fact like an assembly line worker earning its pay.  But notes are important. 

Notes tell the person sitting across from you that you appreciate their time.

Notes capture the pieces of the puzzle (i.e. solution) you will put together later.

Notes trap your instinctual ideas on a page.

Notes show you the work that needs to be done.

Not taking notes, assuming the mind will capture everything that’s relevant, might just leave the work looking to be done by someone else, someone willing to hang on every word.

[roadtosomewheregreat]

FEAR NUMBER TWELVE: Won't learn quick enough

I believe I’ve already said this: Learning never stops.

But what if the deadline/meeting is happening before I can consume and comprehend?

There should always be more time for learning.  And if it looks like there's not, look harder.

[roadtosomewheregreat]

FEAR NUMBER ELEVEN: Deadlines

Deadlines are great because they keep us in check and give us a sense of where we’re going.  But deadlines are scary. 

We always make a deadline with the expectation we will meet it.  And when we make the deadline, making it makes sense.  But a lot happens between the making of the deadline and the actual deadline and a lot is asked of us: Focus, problem solving, time management, and organization – just to name a few. 

Deadlines create a sense of order.  But maintaining that order from beginning to end is the test.

[roadtosomewheregreat]

FEAR NUMBER EIGHT: Failing at old Habits

Whenever you start somewhere new, you start because of your past experience and the results you created. 

You go to this new place, sometimes, because you need a drastic a change, a spark into your life that reignites the engine and has you running on all cylinders – something you haven’t done for awhile.  But you’re still expected to do the job you did before; it was what got you here in the first place.

These tasks might make you vomit.  You might sit there for a moment and ask yourself why you left in the first place, if everything really is all the same when it’s all broken down?  Nerves just might creep in.

But then you’ll do it like you did before.  Because you not only have experience, you have drive.  And that’s why you are where you are.

[roadtosomewheregreat]

The fearless person is well aware of the fear she faces. The fear, though, becomes a compass, not a barrier. It becomes a way to know what to do next, not an evil demon to be extinguished. When we deny...

A wiser view on fear compared to my own.