Gotta Be Believable
Sleepily for me, it’s nearly 3am. I was watching a late movie last night, and dozed off near the end … snoozing soundly on our lounge room couch, until our beloved cat suddenly woke me 15 minutes ago (yes, he wanted his “staff” to attend to his needs) asking for a refill of his now empty bowl.
Before I turned off the tv, I couldn’t help but have a quick look at the guide and notice the overnight infomercials. And without surprise, sure enough there was one for a product I hadn’t yet seen.
This one was for a garden trimmer (the Total Trimmer).
Typical format for a US informercial, although this time they’ve got an Aussie voiceover for selling to the local market. That’s good, except he still read out “gas” instead of “petrol” — but at least it was a “local” voice.
Alternatives
And the presentation of alternative options in black and white, instead of colour, wasn’t surprising either. It’s a way of visually saying “those old style methods” that are no longer the best option (using black and white attempts to signify they’re less appealing as well as dated).
It was kinda frustrating to watch though — because the presentation to me didn’t look believable.
Having helped my dad for several years during high school when he had a lawn mowing business, garden trimmers are something I’m a little familiar with (don’t have one now, but used one plenty of times, even as a teenager).
Now, you should find all the “frustrations” of alternative methods and use them.
But showing someone trying to put gas/petrol into a trimmer from more than ten inches away — and no funnel in sight — that’s just plain ridiculous. People use FUNNELS and it’s EASY. Real people also don’t simply splash gas/petrol all over the place like the rather pathetic and dangerous depiction in the ad.
Do they think I’m an idiot?
Would you do that with pouring milk into your cereal bowl?
Would you hold it a couple of feet away and slightly tip the upright bottle so the milk runs all over the bottle and onto the bench, rather than tipping it “the normal way” so the milk goes into the bowl?
No? You wouldn’t splash it everywhere? Here they expect you do that with petrol.
I’m not sure about you, but an inexpensive plastic funnel for a couple of bucks would solve that problem for me.
Scores a negative for me because I don’t think the depiction of an alternative method is credible.
Here I am, watching the ad, and instantly arguing and solving the objections myself — this is not the thinking you want your prospect to be doing!
Also — seeing a petrol trimmer in action — with heavy duty nylon cutting cord coming out of the head of the trimmer, it’s a far superior result than this plastic looking device.
And on this one, they stop, and have to manually adjust the angle of the head to change the trimmer’s ability to trim areas like lawn edges.
On our trimmer, we just flipped it over in no time at all and kept going, with the fast trimming action now on a different angle and no need to stop and press any buttons or adjust the head of the machine!
So this advertised machine’s limited looking ability scored a negative for me too (knowing how alternative options really work).
No side-by-side comparison, no testimonials in sight either!
Presenting Price
What got me though was the price presentation.
They had a big “$300″ crossed out on the screen for what you wouldn’t pay for some other “old fashioned” gas/petrol trimmer (with a far superior result in my eyes).
Yet the price for this flimsy-looking, lightweight plastic thing was $279.70 (5 payments plus postage handling and insurance) … hardly much different at all (less than 7 per cent).
I’ve only gotta look in the online Bunnings catalogue and they have an electric hedge trimmer for $49.90 and an electric line trimmer for $59 — $108.90 is far LESS anyway than $279.90 for this trimmer with the hedge attachment. Even the cordless Bosch model at Bunnings is only $199. $23.90 for a 25m extension lead (pretty damn easy to roll that up without the tangle they’re showing me), and $12.98 for garden shears, and to me I’ve got the same setup, and probably more effective equipment, at just over HALF price.
Plenty left over for a $15.90 extension cord reel… less than $162 (plus a trip to the store, always fun, and instant purchase) versus $279.90.
It’s scary to think what the other useless optional attachments are worth.
More Potential Objections
One black and white picture shows a tangle of cords in the garage. I can easily “solve” their problem of having to use a cord with a long extension lead by rolling it up around my elbow, or on a reel, like used with a hose — problem solved. Now if they had showed a cord trailing across the lawn, and someone potentially tripping over it — that’s a different problem that really could be a useful objection against alternative choices … but I didn’t see that raised at all!
Now, this thing might not be flimsy in real life, but it sure looked that way to me. To me it looked painfully slow and ineffective. The head hardly made an impact on the lawn edge or the hedges.
And who uses a trimmer to cut their entire lawn? No way!
This thing looked to me like it’d lose a fight against 3 tough blades of grass — not much more power than a kids toy.
There wasn’t real grass flying everywhere, the nylon line would do a much better job! And the nylon line comes in several strengths, there are heavy duty lines (much better than the cheap stuff — look around and find the decent stuff) that spin fast and get the job done.
So this is another objection that hasn’t been raised and addressed — other than them saying it’s lightweight, which is good for some people.
Their demo around the fountain? They were also claiming it’s less straining, but then they’re leaning over on one foot to try and just cut down a few blades of grass — want too much effort for little result.
Around the garden gnomes? Again, the machine looked slow and ineffective, taking more effort than it should for that kind of trimming.
And being battery operated might be a good thing — although it’s only got UP TO a 60 minute charge, and the demo didn’t show the trimmer as having much ability to effectively do the job, so that time is probably eaten up long before your job is finished and you’ll be stuck waiting for a recharge before going back out to get things done.
Again, an objective not addressed … so they leave the viewer to decide on the answer — something you should not do in your own copy.
Find all the objections you can — raise them and answer them! The more the better. Be thorough. Be realistic and believable and have a credible argument. Don’t hide anything … if a prospect thinks about it, and you haven’t addressed it, THEY get to come up with the answer, and it probably misses points you’d want to include.
Doing this shows you really know your product — so you’re the expert and perceived with more trust and value — and you can be more persuasive because you get to influence the answer to the objection, rather than letting prospects think up their own answer. It also avoids insulting the intelligence of your prospective audience by showing alternative scenarios that don’t look at all realistic.
In regard to this garden trimmer, to me (one of those who don’t think the presentation is realistic), it’s fair to say that now I don’t believe you about this … I’m most likely to also start thinking that what else you say also might not be believable.
At that point, you’ve lost me as a prospect because I’m not convinced at all about your presentation.
To me, you ain’t fair dinkum.
Now I’m probably in the minority — I MUST BE, as this ad is running in its current form and probably worked very successfully in the US market before it was imported here — so I’m probably not your ideal prospect anyway … in that case, your ad is doing a good job, even if I don’t believe it.
This is my opinion of course — you’ll have to watch the ad for your own assessment.
And personally I can think of several ways to improve this ad to be more influential (although like I said they probably aren’t looking to address a potential prospect like me). There are several credibility tools and copy arguments that could be used here that I think are missing.
In any marketing … being believable … for trust and credibility … that is ESSENTIAL.
People are skeptical, and getting even more so as time goes on, so if you fail to address these issues in your marketing, you’re “leaving money on the table” and not being as convincing as you can be.
(Now the NEXT informercial that’s now showing, about the Contoured Cloud sleeping mattress — they’re doing a more convincing job than the trimmer!).
Okay, time for me to get some sleep!
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[...] There are several garden gnomes available on the market today such as vintage garden gnomes Gotta Be Believable - deankennedy.com 04/10/2009 Sleepily for me, it’s nearly 3am. I was watching a late movie last [...]
[...] Gotta Be Believable | DeanKennedy.com By Dean Kennedy Now if they had showed a cord trailing across the lawn, and someone potentially tripping over it ? that?s a different problem that really could be a useful objection against alternative choices ? but I didn?t see that raised at all! … DeanKennedy.com - http://www.deankennedy.com/ [...]