Infamous errors in Digital Marketing committed by big brands – Part 1
“Ad Communications fail when you stress that the unwanted behaviour is commonplace”
This is the first of a 3-part series on some of the famous errors committed in the digital marketing world.
Negative Social proof:
This was a term used by Robert Cialdini in his book “Influence”. Social Proof in marketing refers to how consumers are significantly influenced by the behaviour of others.
Negative Social proof refers to the inadvertent misuse of the bias. It is when social proof is used in a manner in which it has the opposite effect of what was originally intended.
Wikipedia’s use of the Negative Social Proof:
The concept in action.
The theory of Social proof works favourably when one emphasizes how widespread a behaviour is.
On the contrary, highlighting the ubiquitous nature of an “inappropriate behaviour” tends to backfire as in the case of Wikipedia’s efforts at fund raising on site.
Here is the message:
“Only a TINY PROPORTION of our readers give. If Wikipedia has given you knowledge, join the 2% who give.”
These communications fail as they stress that the unwanted behaviour is commonplace. Unfortunately, it encourages the very behaviour they are trying to stop.
How to correctly apply this effect?
1. Flip the statistics: Make sure your message emphasizes the popularity of the desired behaviour. Don’t highlight the 2% of donors, but the 400,000 (whatever the figure) people who have already donated. Try to choose a number that harnesses social proof positively and NOT negatively
2. Focus on how people SHOULD behave? vs. how most people behave. If you are facing a situation where most people are behaving in an undesirable manner, your objective is to present data on how people should behave rather than how most behave in a given situation.
Courtesy: Jonah Berger’s “Contagious” and Richard Shotton’s “The Choice Factory”
