When snakes work like a charm.

Marketing’s silver bullet: how do you get someone to do what you want? The mistake we can sometimes make as brands and agencies is coming at it from our own point of view.

We ask 'what do we want' instead of 'what does the audience want?'

Here’s an example. One farmer noticed that after COVID, his game bird population was getting decimated. Why? Because lots of people got dogs during lockdown and they were walking them through his land - off the lead - disturbing/killing the ground-nesting birds.

Unsurprisingly, he put up signs asking them to keep dogs on a lead. Well, many dog owners will think, “My dog's well-behaved, I can keep them off the lead. What’s that harm? I’ll take the path of least resistance. And so will my dog.” So that didn't work.

So what’s going to motivate them if the health of the local wildlife won’t? The health of their dog.

The farmer had the idea of putting up signs saying, “CAUTION: Nesting adders. Keep dogs on a lead.” And it worked a treat.

Now, if you know anything about snakes of the British Isles, you may know that the adder is our only venomous one (and ironically, a massive threat to ground-nesting birds). But even if you didn't know, the very fact there needs to be a warning is enough to make you think twice. Again, the motivation is an easy life. Who wants the distress of seeing your dog in pain? Why risk it?

It paints a picture too - a Sharknado-sized adder sinking its fangs into your cockapoo -?a harmless but effective misdirection. And perhaps less scary than another suggestion: “CAUTION: high-powered rifles in use.”

Sometimes, appealing to people’s better nature just doesn’t work. Human beings can be selfish. We’ll pick and choose which rules apply to us - farmers included.

So to paraphrase JFK, ask not what you want, ask what your audience wants or doesn’t want - in this case an eye-watering vets’ bill and the silent treatment from their partner for a week. Harness the power of your target's motivation and work with it, not against it.

One could also argue it’s a bit rich that landowners want to protect their wild birds from dogs just so their chums can blast them out of the sky at a later date. But that’s for another time.

Humanity. As the old Facebook relationship status used to say: “It’s complicated.”