How To Reach Your Target’s Subconscious

THE QUEEN MOTHER OF ALL KEY MARKETING CHALLENGES IS YOUR TARGET'S SUBCONSCIOUS.

What you and I do for a living isn’t rocket science. It’s people science. And because it’s people, it can be fickle and somewhat complicated.

In almost every campaign, we are attempting to attach the client’s brand to a pleasant or comforting emotion. That makes brand recall and awareness easier. This pleasant sensation can better help the target want to learn more and try the brand. Hopefully, the target has a good experience with the brand to where they adopt it and eventually become a heavy user.

No different from station ratings, our campaigns are dependent on memory and recall.

Memories aren’t just raw data. Almost all of them are attached to some type of emotion. And we try our best to make them work for us.

But, here’s the caveat.

Most of our basic emotions stem from the subconscious mind. And it has some mighty big walls around it.

First; human beings are bombarded with data and messages. In the last century alone, we’ve had to adapt to an existence that’s almost sensory overload; radio, junk mail, print media, billboards, television, texts, phone calls, and of course –social media.

Our subconscious mind sifts through that noise, so our conscious mind can continue with its tasks at hand. It immediately decides if the stimulus (in this case your message) is worth the conscious mind’s time. It decides whether it’s relevant, true or not true, so what, boring, or ok –proceed further. It can do this because it processes data at a rate of 400 billion bits of information per second at a speed of up to 100,000 mph. Compare that to the conscious mind; 2,000 bits per second at 100-150 mph. Even if your message is allowed through the gate, the battle only begins. That land is a place of cynicism, doubt, vulnerability, fear, and even anger. It’s where our primal emotions live. It’s also home to that gut reaction and even prejudices you have about certain people you first meet, or places you enter for the first time. If you’ve had a bad experience with a brand, the memory –and the emotion tied to it –is permanently burned into both your conscious and subconscious mind.

How can we get our message through the primal walls and arm it to win this battle and convince the subconscious that the brand is a good thing?

My first weapon is relatability. Let’s put the target in a scenario they’ve either experienced or can at least empathize.

The example I’m going to use is a brand that has partnered with three of our stations since 2018;

Alfa Romeo of Birmingham.

During our CNA (critical needs analysis) we discovered the primary user will be male, upper 20’s to early 40’s. It’s a somewhat high-end, high performance sports car. Key marketing challenge(s): Those of us old enough to remember the 1960’s and 70’s know the brand carried a reputation for not being reliable and can be expensive to service. Then, there’s the cost. It’s an Italian sports car.

However, the primary target isn’t old enough to have had experiences with Alfa Romeo. The brand almost went dormant in this market from the mid 1980’s to 2015. But, that still leaves us with cost. The client informed us it’s a new day at Alfa Romeo. It’s more reliable than ever and comes with lease incentives comparable to any sports sedan like Nissan, Lexus, or Infinity.

So, now I have incentive to create a call to action. Now, let’s put the target behind the wheel of this car and attach a pleasant sensation to this brand. I’m going to win over the male target’s subconscious with one of its primal residents: lust via testosterone.

That’s easy. The Alfa Romeo is powered by a Ferrari motor. What male doesn’t love that sound? I went to the dealership, and recorded the sound of the real machine.

Let’s go.

(open with sultry female vo)

This is the sound of ordinary.

(sfx of regular 4 cylinder car starting)

And this is the sound of extraordinary

(Switch to sfx of Alfa Romeo Giulia starting and motor revving)

Introducing the Ferrari powered Alfa Romeo Giulia.

(sfx of motor accelerating and shifting gears)

A pure Italian thoroughbred that can be yours for only $299 per month. Experience extraordinary (sfx motor roar) by test driving one today. Then, learn how you can lease a new Alfa Romeo Giulia for just $299 per month at Alfa Romeo of Birmingham, Just off I-459 on Grants Mill Road (add lease disclaimer). Alfa Romeo Giulia –defy the ordinary.

We’ve let the sound of that car break through the subconscious barrier. It had a little extra help from male testosterone. Now that the message is inside, we were able to create a call to action, an incentive to learn more and even try the brand by taking a test drive. And we reinforced that call to action by mentioning the tactic –a low price (even though it’s a lease and the disclaimer states that there’s about a 3k down payment).

Alfa Romeo of Birmingham has renewed its annual contracts with us ever since.

No, it’s not rocket science. If it’s anything, it’s neuroscience. If you’d really like to learn more about the physiological process of memory, I invite you to pick up the book –Incognito: The Secret Lives of The Brain by Dr. David Eagleman. He’s heralded as the Carl Sagan of neuroscience for his ability to explain such a very complicated subject in easy-to-understand terms.