How to Embrace Flaws Using the Pratfall Effect – InstantFollowerz

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This is something that is hard for a marketer to admit.

Sometimes marketing is incredibly fast.

It is so intensely focused on highlighting the positives that marketing often feels superficial. Advertising campaigns, slogans and product launches use the same rhetoric.

They talk about how great the thing is.

Gillette is the best a man can get. Coca-Cola unlocks happiness. And KFC is Finger Lickin’ Good.

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I’m not surprised.

If you want persuade someone to buy somethingyou’ll probably talk about how great it is.

If you wanted to bond with your roommate at work, you wouldn’t tell them they put tuna in the office microwave. No, you would focus on the positives.

That’s the conventional wisdom.

But is that true?

You see, I think we all know, deep down, that we’re not only attracted to positive things.

no. Sometimes we prefer imperfections.

Accepting imperfections in marketing is about customer psychology.

If you told McDonald’s to change its slogan I love itthat, I only have $4 so this will have to do — would be kicked out of the boardroom.

But this is the problem. It’s marketing based on instinct, not evidence.

It’s marketing based on opinion, not fact.

It’s marketing based on experience, not science.

See if we focused on understanding of psychology behind our customers, we might not laugh at this proposal for a new McDonald’s slogan. We could accept that.

Perfection is not perfect.

Adam Grant shared a study of world-class sculptors in his book Hidden Potential.

It turns out that the world-class sculptors were not world-class students. They showed some talent while studying and were definitely not perfect. Their pieces contained many flaws.

66% of the world’s best sculptors graduated from high school with B’s and C’s.

A similar pattern emerged when comparing America’s most influential architects.

Great architects were rarely excellent students: they usually graduated from college with a B or C average.

Adam Grant writes that, in their pursuit of flawless results, research suggests that perfectionists tend to do three things wrong.

1. They obsess over details that don’t matter.
2. They avoid unfamiliar situations that can lead to failure.
3. They hide because of mistakes.

There is something powerful about accepting flaws. Admit that perfection is impossible and instead show the imperfections that make you who you are.

And the same goes for merchants. Those who accept their flaws tend to create better ads.

Prattfall effect

This is known in psychology as the pratfall effect.

The bursting effect was documented back then in 1966 by Harvard psychologist Elliot Aronson. His studies found that people perceive intelligent quiz contestants as more likable when they spill their coffee themselves. In other words, competent people are preferred if they are a little clumsy.

In Aronson’s words, “the spoofing effect made the quiz contestant seem more attractive, increasing his approachability and making him more human”.

No Sylvester has followed study at Swansea University. Her team found that when job candidates reveal a weakness, they are perceived as more likable, and therefore much more likely to be offered the job.

Pratfall effect in practice

Consumer psychologist Adam Ferrier, a previous guest on Nudge, proved this asking a representative sample of 626 people a question about cookies.

Participants were shown two cookies that were identical except for one small difference. One cookie had a rough edge, while the other was perfectly smooth.

But I’m never convinced until I test these principles myself. So, I created two Reddit ads to promote my podcast, Push.

The Prattfall Effect Marketing Experiment

The first ad was traditional textbook marketing stuff, emphasizing all the positives of listening to my show. It was titled “5 Reasons You Should Be Listening to Nudge.”

Another pointed out my flaws. Titled “5 Reasons You SHOULD NOT Listen to Nudge.”

I’ll be honest. I didn’t expect a pratfall ad to work. It was too literal. I was literally telling people not to listen to my show AND giving them reasons why.

Of course, the reasons I gave weren’t terrible and everything was written in jest, but still I didn’t think it would surpass control.

I spent about $110 in total. The ad was seen by over 300,000 people. And I couldn’t believe the results.

It was 4x more efficient.

The click-through rate for the dashboard was 0.09%, but the click-through rate for the fake ad was 0.47%. I got a 391% increase telling people not to listen to my show. Over 500 new listeners joined the show from that one ad. And to date, it’s my most successful test on Reddit.

And yet, this is something I doubt I’d ever use in a business environment. Your boss wouldn’t dare let you try something he says don’t buy the product. It’s so rare to see companies that embrace marketing imperfections or show weaknesses, because it seems too risky.

But it pays to be different.

It pays to apply science to marketing.

And it pays to accept your flaws.