Superbowl Part 3: But (accessibility) brought it back

Part 1: https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/conorflew_marketing-advertising-marketingstrategy-activity-7292529981681729536-Gb1C?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Part 2: https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/conorflew_marketing-psycholgy-behaviouraleconomics-activity-7292865579852390400-0Cic?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Third and final Superbowl post, so it's time to talk about the most important takeaway from this campaign. Although, I did technically already reveal what this all-important strategy is...

After all, it is a deceptively simple strategy.

The secret to making content that actually uses the principle of completion correctly is making sure that what you're asking people to do is SIMPLE and ACCESSIBLE.

Sludge and Locks

There's a term from behavioral economics that I really do think deserves a bigger spotlight in mainstream marketing: Sludge.

Sludge was coined by Thaler as a counterpoint to his idea of 'nudge' (the art of environmental persuasion), serving as a catch-all term for everything that may exist, intentionally or not, to dissuade specific courses of action.

Whether this means going to a shop, placing an order over the phone, any additional clicks to needed get to a specific web page, un-skippable waiting, or pointless sign-in forms. No matters how you reach people or what you want them to do, anything that requires effort on the part of the individual can be counted as sludge.

A good way to visualize this is to imagine your content is being kept in a box, and every single obstacle that would dissuade a person from engaging with it is a lock that needs to be opened. These can be as simple as a latch (opening a page) or as complicated as a keypad (sign-in) or even a card reader (paying for access).

It's entirely circumstantial about how many locks your audience will be willing to go through, but with every obstacle you introduce, you are going to loose at least a little bit of your potential customer base, so minimizing pointless locks is important.

But having said that, the most problematic lock for TV based advertising isn't even on the box; it's on the door. Cross platform migration is an absolute nightmare, requiring for audiences to remember the product and open a different device to resume their journey.

This is the advertising equivalent to giving your audience a key and the location of the door where they can find the box. Sure, some people will take the time to find the box, but significantly more people will just take the key and forget that box even exists.

This is the problem that traditional TV advertising has been struggling with for decades.

And this is the problem that the QR code solved.

The Beauty of the QR Code

There has literally never been a better time to use QR codes. The technology has existed since '94, but only now that we have cameras capable of capturing high quality images on demand, internet speeds fast enough to open webpages in seconds, and a populace that recognizes and accepts them as part of day-to-day life.

Within the context of our box and door example, a QR code is not only the key to the door, but a private car that will take you to the door right now. No need to type in a web page or search on google, you've got instant access to exactly where you want to go, turning this sludge from an insurmountable problem into a substantially less difficult task.

A task that that became a powerful nudge when combined with the incomplete storytelling technique of showing just the QR code.

And while conversions for Coinbase's offer were still within the 1-5% range of everyone who visited the site, the overwhelming millions of people who accepted this digital invite turned into tens of thousands of new users, as well as a huge amount of discussion about what the QR code was.

How to (actually) use the principle of completion

Simple Answer: Keep it easy. Make sure that what you're asking people to do is quick, well signposted, and requires an amount of effort proportional to the reward that you're offering. If possible, it also helps if the task itself is also fun or engaging, as this might further encourage a 'foot-in-the-door' mindset.

• Hide a discount code in a simple digital jigsaw
• Turn "textboxes" into tick boxes with the most common responses and an 'other' box
• Offer quick links to the most in-demand pages as a way to avoid pointless clicks
• 'Accidentally' leave an obvious talking point in a video to give people something to talk about (yes this counts, a state of resolution can be attained through socially driven recognition)
• Create all the content you want people to search for before talking about it (oops...)

These are just a few examples I could come up with as way to get people to engage more with content or instructions that otherwise might be ignored for one reason or another.

My test

In the first post, I invited people to share their thoughts about why Coinbase's campaign worked. The results? Crickets.

I'm not going to lie, I was expecting this.

This is because I had effectively gone against the idea of simplicity that makes digital content work. I had attached a 200 word essay with no reward to my box. The task was complicated, and did not lead to any form of reasonable resolution. It was going to fail.

But this test was an afterthought, because I wanted to run a different test:

"Can I make people care about my content more by using accessibility and completion?"

Normally I would have thrown all of this into one article and called it a day, but by splitting this into 3 parts, introducing the context and explaining both elements separately, it's my belief that I would have created a deeper sense of investment in this otherwise moot case study. And by adding links to the next part directly underneath the previous one, I would give readers the opportunity to complete their content journey right here right now.

I only have a small following, but it will be interesting to see if this article performs any better than my last few...