Archive for December, 2009

Technology has changed the retail world like nothing that has happened in the last 100 years. The same thing has happened in publishing, where 60,000 jobs have been lost in just over eight years. David Carr of the New York Times recently explained in an article entitled The Fall and Rise of Media: “Those of us who covered media were told for years that the sky was falling, and nothing happened. And then it did. Great big chunks of the sky gave way and magazines tumbled — Gourmet!? — that seemed as if they were as solid as the skyline itself.”

Sound familiar? Who ever thought Heilig-Meyers would fall, or Sears Homeline!?

Carr paints a crystal clear picture I see daily when dealing with the young people in my life. “I come across another one who is a bundle of ideas, energy and technological mastery,” he wrote. “The next wave is not just knocking on doors, but seeking to knock them down.”

The next wave of marketers know about a scientific discipline called “Persuasion Technology” that holds enormous possibilities where the old paradigms of mass advertising no longer apply. BJ Fogg from Stanford University,the leading expert in the field takes a scientific approach to studying Persuasion Technology by conducting experiments, comparing different conditions to see which approach is the most persuasive. Fogg made-up the term “Captology” to denote the study of computer mediated persuasion, which he defines as “changing people’s behavior.” He identified 35 different types of behavioral change and mapped them in what he calls the “Behavior Grid.”

This type of information is the reason we spend as much time asking, “What you are trying to accomplish?”

Is your internet partner suggesting a “build it and they will come” kind of plan is all you really need? Let us know how that’s working out for you a few months down the road. In the meantime, we’ll be studying scientifically proven methods to persuade your customers.