Number 78: November 17, 2004

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This week in Katydid:

• Be Aware of the Reptile
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Be Aware of the Reptile
I love a good sales pitch. I remember the first time I experienced the thrill of a well-executed pitch. Not surprisingly, a car salesman delivered it. My buddy and I barely had our licenses to drive when we walked into the Toyota showroom.

The salesman, a tall, lean, sandy-haired fellow with a mustache must have known we weren't really in a position to purchase. I imagine if there were any other customers at that hour, we would have browsed unmolested. Yet, this guy seemed embraced the opportunity to practice.

He had a curious way of smoking his cigarette – you could smoke almost anywhere then – he held it between his thumb and index finger with the lit end over his palm to catch the ashes. To smoke he would twist his wrist around backward so that the ashes never fell to the floor. That odd gesture, combined with his enthusiasm for the product and his willingness to connect with two kids playing hooky from school etched him into my memory. This was the cool older brother clueing in his kid brothers on the ways of the world.

Marketers look for those kinds of emotional connections. Last week, PBS aired a FRONTLINE report on marketing research, "The Persuaders." It is an amazing, insightful look into the state of marketing today and where it may be headed. You can watch it online. (PBS is an excellent example of how to connect broadcast and online media.)

One of the experts profiled in the Persuaders is Clotaire Rapaille, founder of Archetype Discoveries Worldwide, Inc. Rapaille is a former psychiatrist who spent years working with autistic children. Through his work, he gained insight into the non-verbal, pre-emotional language behind most of our thinking. He believes that when we first learn a word, we connect it to an emotional event. We overlay these maps, or archetypes, onto everything with which we interact; understanding that map reveals what he calls the code.

In Rapaille's research, products sell or fail to sell depending on whether they are on or off code. An example used in the program is the SUV. Rapaille encouraged automakers to make SUVs bigger and tint their windows darker because the code for SUVs is domination. This makes sense to me when someone driving a Hummer pulls up behind me on the freeway: headlights, straight in my rearview mirror; windshield, a flat stare; grill, a determined but maniacal grin; driver, a square-jawed soccer mom.

Look at the New Beetle from Volkswagen and you can't help but anthropomorphize. You see its smiling face, those rosy cheeks, and the cartoon eyes. The code might be, "Come play with me."

I drive a small, sporty sedan. I guess the code for which is, "Get me away from these nuts, quick!"

There is something, though, to Rapaille's research. He talks about hitting the reptilian hot button. His research seeks to dig up the code that companies can apply generally to their products. Hit the code and our reptilian brain, which we cannot ignore, will impel us to purchase. We will need, of course, to bring in our intellectual faculties to justify the purchase, so we have a good explanation for our spouses when we bring home that HDTV.

I agree that you can't ask people to be self-reflective about their own buying habits. We all think we're perfectly reasonable. When backed into a corner, we can even fall back on, "Well, it's my guilty pleasure."

Most people aren't aware of how they feel on a conscious level. When the interviewer asks Rapaille why we can't just be more aware of our reptilian appetites and use self-discipline long enough for reason to step in, Rapaille demurs: we want what we want.

But the program began with the increasing clutter in advertising. As each advertiser must scream louder or whisper softer to distinguish itself over the din of the marketplace, we train ourselves to be more selective. It may well be that researchers will be able to decode our subconscious desires to manipulate our buying decisions; however, once we know the con, we'll become cynical of any attempt to connect with our emotional core.

Then, once the cycle of anti-manipulation ends (the inevitable first counter-strike to the backlash), we'll find ourselves wanting products that function well. We'll crave products designed with consumers in mind. Eventually, these products will become part of the fabric of our lives. We'll come to bond with them like family members and our children will learn their names. Rapaille's descendents will be waiting and watching.

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Kevin Troy Darling

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