It's a battlefield out there...

“Marketing is a battle of perceptions, not products.”

― Al Ries, author of The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing

How your potential prospects perceive you and your services is more important than the real facts of the products/service itself.

It is a battlefield of perceptions.

Al Ries, who is one of the most prominent marketing strategist for Fortune 500 firms, says this:?

"Advertising was widely considered to be communications."

"Here is a typical approach to advertising."

"You studied your product, its features and its competitors and then you prepared advertising that explained why your product was better."

"In spite of billions of advertising dollars spent every year, perceptions about leading brands as well as their market shares seldom changed."

For e.g, if you want an electric car, which brand would come to your mind for innovation, reliability and a safe buy?

Yes, Tesla.

Would you think about GM’s or Ford’s electric vehicles in the categories of “innovation, reliability, a safe buy” even though they are well-established brands?

Did you even know they have electric cars? No?

Advertising for dentists and doctors has the exact same problem about perceptions.

Here are the typical messages:

“Dr XX is the very best in his field.”

“He graduated at the top of his class.”

“He has state-of-the-art equipment.”

“We can transform your smile.” (In other words, we can perform work which you already expect us to do!)

In the prospect's mind, these messages look and sound the same as the next dentist/doctor ad he is looking at.

There is no differentiation.

Would it be wrong to state there is also no ‘changing of perception’?

Since you have failed to change his perception about you, your marketing would then fail to that degree, wouldn't it?

By the way, back to the example about the auto industry.

While it is common for the auto industry to spend billions of dollars in ads every year, Tesla spends $0 on traditional ads.

Tesla applied the “Un-Advertising principle” effectively and changed lots of perception in the huge auto industry marketing battlefield.

Helmut Flasch

Award-winning UnAdvertising Strategies

UnBreakable Economy Recurring Income

Bestselling Author