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Business Rule #41:
Sell Benefits, Not Features
December 1, 2005
by Caroline Pfouts
Human beings are drawn to other people. Even pictures of people fascinate us, which is why almost every magazine on the newsstand has a photo of a person on the cover. Emotions are what enable us connect to family and friends…and to effective marketing campaigns.
This week, the challenge was to come up with a sixty-second video that explained the benefits of Microsoft’s Live Meeting software. Although the video was supposed to be “educational,” a sixty-second video on a new product is a TV commercial by any other name. There’s not much time to grab the viewer’s attention and deliver a message.
The Excel team agreed early on that Rebecca Jarvis would be their Project Manager on this task. They wrote a script that focused on just how this new software would benefit users and then took it one step farther. They told a story about a manager who was having trouble e-mailing large files of materials for a meeting and was getting frustrated by the complications of setting it up face-to-face. That established the problem. For the solution, Excel showed the same manager at the computer, enjoying the ease of working with the new Live Meeting software and getting the same work done faster with a relaxed smile at the end of the day.
On the Capital Edge team, Felisha Mason had to fight to be Project Manager. Alla Wartenberg didn’t willingly give up the opportunity to run the show, and the tension continued to create friction even after Felisha claimed the title. When it came to filming, Felisha was the clear choice to be the actress, as she is the more expressive of the two. By delegating the responsibility of directing the video to Alla, however, Felisha relinquished more power than she wanted to. The ensuing struggle for ultimate control was evident in the resulting video.
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Capital Edge’s problems only got worse when they learned they had to edit two and a half minutes of material down to sixty seconds. Such a problem is common in radio and television advertising, where sponsors want to use every second of air time wisely, but can’t run over thirty or sixty seconds. Felisha and Alla would have been smart to take their available footage and rethink what kind of a story could be told with those images. Instead of maintaining an emotional connection through storytelling though, Alla decided to take the “educational” aspect of the assignment to heart. She edited video footage with text screens explaining the features of Live Meeting. The end result looked like a poor PowerPoint presentation. Dry at best, confusing at worst.
Everything hardly went smoothly for Excel, either. They hired a professional actor for the job but were not pleased with his performance. Rebecca knew she had a problem after a few takes, as her actor couldn’t muster any sense of genuine frustration for the camera. She had a quick, private meeting with Randal Pinkett, recruited him to take over the role, and let the pro go. A smart move, because, even though Randal isn’t about to win awards for his acting, he was much less wooden than the pro. Having the confidence to re-cast on short notice, when the only other alternative is an untrained actor, was a bold move—but one that paid off for Rebecca.
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Emotions are what enable us connect to family and friends…and to effective marketing campaigns.
