FUD Marketing : How can we beat this negative bias?

Born in a south Indian family with dark skin, I was acquainted with fairness creams ads that used to get telecasted day in and day out. At one point in my life, I started believing that I need to be fair to get a decent job. It took me years to realize that all one needs is skills to get a job. The cosmetic industry has made us believe that we are never good enough. We are either not tall enough, our hair is not dense enough, or our body is not thin enough or muscular enough to be accepted by society. I believe that there would have been a point in your life where you would have also felt insecure like me.?Body shaming?has been the key used by this industry to sell their products.

FUD : Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt

How ethical is this marketing technique?

Take a pause and look at the products around you (especially the food products), it is not just the cosmetic industry but many companies have increased sales by instilling fear. Security software representatives want to convince people to buy certain products by frightening them with statements like: “if you don’t do (or buy) this, you will be hacked.” Sadly, this way of communicating is still an often-used approach in Information Security.? FUD marketing tactics are meant to scare the customer into buying a product or using a service and rely on the customer's lack of information to make a decision on their own. COVID pandemic was one other strong usecase of FUD where many companies sold their products by instilling fear.

FUD is so effective because adverse events have a more significant impact on our brain than positive ones. In psychology, this is called negative bias.

In?the 1970s,?IBM?started using FUD to persuade buyers to go with safe IBM gear rather than with competitors' equipment. For many years,?Microsoft?has employed this approach to keep consumers from buying low-cost or free open-source alternatives to its software products. In?2004?Microsoft got itself into trouble with a U.K. advertising standards body for claiming that the Windows OS was much cheaper than Linux. The Advertising Standards Authority asked Microsoft to amend the ads, asserting that Microsoft had not made a fair and accurate claim because of the hardware used to run the comparison. Recently, FUD sweeps through the?crypto?market, many investors gave in to the prevalent sentiment and panic and sold their assets based on what they heard in the news or on social media. Well, I was a?victim of FUD?here too :(.

With my recent interactions with people across various organizations, I was shocked to know that several companies have?FUD features?to be implemented in their?product backlog; ads and app notifications creating fake panic are one of the least FUD features that I can name. Despite FUD being illegal in many countries, companies discover ways to use our deepest insecurities against us.

Being prepared to tackle FUD from competitors

These are the two examples illustrating the most prevalent form of FUD, when a competitor launches a new product, a marketing manager announces that a better product will be released later in the year, even though release dates are very uncertain.?When informed that a customer is evaluating a competitor's solution, a salesperson suggests the competitor company is likely to be a target for acquisition.

Every year during the iPhone release, we see a lot of FUD against Apple over patched iPhone bugs from the competitors with a fear of losing a good portion of sales to Apple. Even if your sales team doesn’t use FUD, undoubtedly you’ll see?competitors use it against you. So it’s important to prepare and be ready to counter it. Here is what I feel may help:

• You must give consumers a?reason to buy, a?strong selling point, and a?true value?that is added to their business or to their life.
• Bring in a shift in mindset from marketing to conversations with the customers.?
• Use empathy as a tool to identify where their fears are coming from and move to resolve them. Help them deal with their insecurities. Offer extended support to deal with issues that might come up in the future.
• Provide a holistic experience of the change that the new features bring in. Provide them the experience of the future. Show them how your product or service alleviates their fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

Product creators can help the consumer like me from falling into the vicious trap of FUD. On the other hand, the recipe to fight FUD lies with us as well. FOMO?(Feeling Of Missing Out) is an issue that many of us face and one strong reason for FUD. Gadgets, apps, web services, insurances, dietary supplements, processed fancy eateries and drinks, and a lot more can use FUD. The next time you want to buy something,?ask yourself if you really need it. Search for authentic sources to justify your decisions. Sustainability in terms of reducing wastage is basically in our hands. So,?fight the FUD for a better future.

Share your thoughts on FUD and let me know in the comments if you were a victim of FUD just like me. Read more examples of FUD in this?link .

#learningjourney #sustainability #fud #marketing #productmanagement #psychology

References and Interesting reads:

1. https://blog.antwerpmanagementschool.be/en/why-fud-fails-and-bad-prevails
2. https://threatpost.com/apple-claims-google-is-spreading-fud-over-patched-iphone-bugs/148102/