The trouble with false dichotomies.

Back in the late 70s, I met a very beautiful young lady at a party in London.

I plucked up my courage and went over to talk to her. I asked her what she did, and she said she worked in computing.

Remember this was prior to the 'PC' era, so the computers she was working with were seriously big grunters. Machines that filled entire air-conditioned basements and had flashing lights and reels of magnetic tape that whirred and spun back and forth.

Instantly realising I was totally out of my depth, but still trying desperately to impress her, I said: "I really should learn about computers. I think the world is going to divide into people who can talk to them, and people who can't."

"No," she replied, "the world is divided into people who categorise things and people who don't."

And she spun on her heel and disappeared.

Ouch!

I had to admire it. Best. Put. Down. Ever.

Forty years on, it still stings! But at least I can laugh about it now.

And more importantly I never forgot the lesson.

So the next time you're torn between two equally unattractive alternatives, ask yourself:

"Is there another way of thinking about this?"

Oils ain't oils.

Here's an example of finding a new perspective.

I was once involved in launching a new brand of motor oil for a well-known oil company in Australia. The product was a range of semi- and fully-synthetic oils for car engines.

'Synthetic' oil is the result of some very complex hydro-carbon chemistry and is both superior to - and more expensive than - the 'mineral' oil that is pumped up from holes in the ground and then refined (for non-chemists, 'cooked').

But that's not how people responded to it.

It was the word 'synthetic' that was causing the trouble ...

Everyone understood 'synthetic' to mean 'artificial', but it tended to be associated with inferior, cheap alternatives. Nylon is 'synthetic silk'. Vinyl is 'synthetic leather'. Margarine is 'synthetic butter'. You get the drift. There are almost no examples of a 'synthetic' product being perceived as superior to the 'natural' version.

So it was in this category, too - nobody thought the synthetic product could be better. We struggled with this through our early research.

Then, right at the end of another disappointing group discussion, when the respondents had all picked up their envelopes of cash and were leaving, one of them joked: "Ha, ha! Synthetics ain't oils".

He was making a poor joke, one that referred to a well-known ad campaign in Australia for Valvoline, which used the line "Oils ain't oils".

But what he said went off like like a little bomb inside my head ...

Our problem, as we saw it, was that we were last into the market, trying to claim to be a 'better' oil than the established market leader. And it was just not credible.

BUT!

But if we didn't have to call it 'oil', then it wasn't 'synthetic' anything.

Instead, we could position it as the first of a whole new category of products. Something else entirely that does the same job as oil, but does it better.

We could call it a 'scientifically formulated engine lubricant' ...

Not ' a better oil', but something new that is ' better than oil'.

So we tried it. It tested like a dream. We launched. It worked.

Well, it started to work ...

Four months after the launch, the client changed the Brand Manager and the new guy changed everything because he hadn't been involved in the development process, and didn't understand what we were trying to do. Despite our best efforts to explain, he was still thinking about how to be 'a better oil'.

Despite numerous campaigns and re-launches, ever since then the brand has had a parity positioning. And market share roughly in line with its share of distribution. Even though all the early indications at launch were that it could have knocked off the market leader of fifty years or more, given a little more time and money for our idea to become more established. Instead, we didn't even get to run with it for one complete purchase cycle.

I still see this as one of the best ideas I ever had. As well as one of the biggest lost opportunities I was ever involved with. (Now that's a dichotomy).

But as Battery Sergeant Major Williams used to say "Oh dear. How sad. Never mind."

Three lessons (in parallel)

The first lesson is that the category you think you are in acts like a box inside your mind. A box that's just big enough to hold you and all your competitors. If you really want to change the game, you have to be aware of it and make a conscious effort to think outside that box. It may be trite, but it's true.

The second lesson is that your research isn't over until the room is completely empty and silent. You never know when someone will drop their little bombshell on you. It may come while they are on their way out of the door. (Of course, you actually have to be there to hear it, but that's an issue for another day).

The final lesson is the age-old one that radically different ideas need more time to become accepted. That, and the value of not changing horses in mid-stream. Sometimes even good clients just can't seem to get out of their own way ...