What went wrong with UBER Campagin?
Recently UBER initiated a marketing campaign at the main avenues of Cairo, by pinning huge advertisement boards at the main squares and crossroads, it contains a picture of an UBER Campaign rider along with a statement that supposedly is (a persuasive) one!
Regardless that these kind of campaigns are useless for the current status that UBER has already achieved, so the cash spent on it could be directed in better marketing channels. Also regardless the unethical scorn and mock about Mothers-in-Law, But what really caught my attention is the content of one of the ads that was as follow,
“Since UBER Campaign , I saved 547 (wasted) hours on the beltway.”
This clause is supposed to persuade car owners to abandon driving and go for riding UBER by saving those 547 hours. I certainly believe that the content writer of such an ad was focusing on showing big numbers as an axiom that influence people, but it doesn’t always work in that way. Yes big numbers persuade. According to one research “The Easy Path From Many To Much: the Numerosity Heuristic” it shows that people have tendency for the bigger number as long as they represent gains, while they inversely go more for lower numbers as long as they represent losses, for getting suspended after 30 days of misuse is better shown by getting suspended after one month of misuse. And 1,000 milligrams of fibers in our product is much better than one gram of fiber in our product.
But the misuse of numbers size lead to distraction and disregarding the whole content.
you can also read When Persuasion Kills!
For the kind of advertisement board that is held in an urban area, it should be considered that the exposure period for the car passers may not exceed 10 seconds, while for car riders it’s almost 3 seconds, so the ad must be as concise as it could be, and never take much time to be processed in the mind, because after couple of yards the passers will watch the next sign with new content and so on.
The commoners can’t swiftly calculate the value of 547 hours it represents, if you ask someone how many days it sums out, then he will have to stop and get his calculator and do the math 547/60, hmmmm…. it’s 9 days along with 0.116667 fraction of a day!
Brains wouldn’t recognize that easily, Emotions wouldn’t digest this value.
In those split seconds of exposure people would prefer to read something like that,
“Since UBER Campaign, I saved 2 hours daily on the beltway.”
“Since UBER, I did read 3 books a month just on the beltway.”
“Since UBER Campaign, I did 2 hours of business calls while going by the beltway.”
Numbers in the previous quotes are much easily understood by the fast, intuitive system (1) of the brain that only can digest rapidly and easily read contents.
Numbers in the previous quotes are more tangible, more beneficial, they convey more comprehensive benefits.
Finally, a small modification to the placement of the number in the ad content would magnify the results, by placing the number at the beginning with big and special color and font would prime and anchor the mind to the (value) of that number.
“2 hour…Since UBER, I saved 2 hours daily on the beltway.”
“3 Books…Since UBER Campaign, I did read 3 books a month just on the beltway.”
“2 hours…Since UBER, I did 2 hours of business calls while goes by the beltway.”
For more Persuasion tactics you can check my book The Way of Innovation to The Art of Persuasion
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