Using Controversy To Gain Attention (Honey Maid)

[MarkNNelson]

Bottom line up front:

Can you find some subject (maybe a hot-button political topic, or maybe a certain celebrity, or a sports team) where the following 2 things hold true?

• To a large degree, your customers & target market are strongly aligned and in agreement on the issue.
• There's a substantial block of the public that tend to hold the opposite opinion, but they're primarily not your target market.

The long version:

I just had an eye-opening discussion regarding controversy marketing, and I thought I'd share the relevant point with you all. And given that it's controversial, let me add the standard disclaimer: this is not a political, religious, or moral discussion; it's a business one.

So, in case you missed this, Honey Maid put out an ad last month that showed some families enjoying their product. In one family, the dad had tons of tattoos. In another family, the parents were a same-sex couple, and another family was interracial.

Their tagline was "No matter how things change, what makes us wholesome never will"

As one would expect, there was a huge public outcry from people who had a problem with the message. And instead of the company putting out some half-assed apology that really isn't, they totally doubled down and put out this instead:

So if you're part of the general public, with no real interest in marketing, then you might think "Why would they stir up such controversy?"

Of course you, dear Fastlaner, are smarter than that. You know why they did it, because controversy sells.

But what if the controversy you stir up backfires, and causes you a net loss of customers?

Well, here's the key. And it seems so obvious now, but I had never thought about this part of it before. I wanted to share with the group because, well, I can't really be the only one who hadn't realized this, right? The key is that, even before starting the controversy, Honey Maid knew that it was virtually assured of coming out on top.

• A huge percentage of Honey Maid's customers are parents of small children, and are predominantly 18-35 years old

• 18-35 year-old Americans are overwhelmingly (like 70%-80%) in favor of same-sex marriage & interracial marriage, and 40% have a tattoo.

So they found an issue where they knew that they could stir up some controversy, and thus gain a lot of interest & eyeballs, but where they were also virtually assured that their core audience would support them. To use @snowbank's vocabulary, it's totally +EV.

So how can you use this in your business? Do you sell to baby boomers or retirees? Bitch about Justin Bieber. Sell primarily to customers in NYC? Make fun of the Red Sox.

Even if you never blow up and get millions of YouTube views, it still did it's job. Your haters made noise about you and brought you publicity. And you gave your fans another reason to love you, both because you support something they agree with, and because you had the guts to stand up to all those mean folks on the other side.

 

Dislike ads? Become a Fastlane member: Subscribe today and surround yourself with winners and millionaire mentors, not those broke friends who only want to drink beer and play video games. :-)

[DrkSide]

Xjomi O fu puv moli dunqepoit atoph vjot vzqi ug efwisvotoph O fu tii vjev ov xuslt. Veli vji Dude-Dume dunnisdoem vjev eosif ev vjot ziest taqiscuxm. Ov tqeslif ep uavsehi cz tophoph Enisode ot Cieavogam op gusiohp mephaehit. O xuamf jewi piwis lpuxp ecuav ov og tuniupi jefp'v qutvif e tunivjoph ecuav ov up nz Gedicuul.