In the marketing process of our products, whether it is advertising or activities, the ultimate goal is to inform the product or brand characteristics and communicate with the target consumer groups. The promotion techniques we usually use positive descriptions to highlight product characteristics. For example, the mobile phone you sell is resistant to falling. In the advertisement, someone may smash the mobile phone with a hammer but cannot break it.
However, this kind of positive expression method usually has insufficient impact and is difficult to cause stimulation and surprise to the target population. I would also recommend that you use reverse thinking to promote and advertise.
Reverse expression techniques can often create stronger feelings of conflict, and conflict is a human memory point, which can enhance users' perception of the characteristics of your product.
We still use the example of selling mobile phones as an example. The product characteristics we want to show are solidity and anti-fall:
Positive advertising ideas:
If you smash your phone with a hammer, you can't smash it no matter how hard you hit it. Finally, the copywriting reflects the product's characteristics - solid and resistant to falling.
Reverse advertising ideas:
I smashed my phone with a hammer and smashed it, and the copywriting reflects the product's characteristics - after trying it in 2018, we finally smashed my phone.
A very simple reversal can leave a deep impression on the user. The positive thinking is simple and direct. The stronger it is to resist falling, it is to express it by not rotting it; the reverse thinking is to save the country through curves, and the surface is that the mobile phone will be broken as soon as it is smashed, but the copywriting is reversed, and the product's anti-fall characteristics are reflected by the number of times it smashes the mobile phone.
This kind of reverse thinking is actually widely used in advertising creativity, and often uses the main copy to achieve reverse conflicts.
For example: 5G is coming, how to reflect the fast network speed of 5G? If you look at it with a positive creative method, it is usually to compare and compare things quickly to highlight the speed; but if you think with reverse thinking, you can reflect "fast" through "slow".
But how to tell this story?
In fact, it is very simple. The faster the Internet speed, the more people can save time to do other things, and the more they can enjoy life slowly. People's lives can become slower because of the Internet speed. This will make sense.
Screenshot of 4G advertising in China Telecom
In fact, from the perspective of results, both front and back are the same thing. The key is how you express it. Through language skills, you may easily connect the reverse result with product characteristics.
If you want to reflect the good quality of your product, the positive and creative idea is to show the various conveniences brought by the good quality of various products, but you can also think in reverse, and you can express it through customer service staff very leisurely. Why?
Because the product quality is so good that no one comes to customer service.
Then the specific creative performance may be the notification gimmick advertisement for dismissing all customer service, it may be a short video advertisement shooting customer service staff who are working and playing games and surfing the Internet, it may be an elderly customer service staff who cannot get promoted and raise salary because they have no users needed services for many years...
If you want to reflect the high-tech of your product, you can reflect the high-tech performance of the product through the harmless inconvenience caused by high-tech. However, those inconveniences are actually "happy worries" and will not cause negative emotions for users. Instead, you will remember your product because of conflicts. Common self-deprecating advertisements also belong to this type.
To summarize, there are three main routines:
Expressing the opposite of the advantageous characteristics, and finally reversal; (for example: the above mobile phone example)
Through negative expressions in other aspects, the final reversal; (for example: the above customer service example)
Through innocence and self-deprecating, the product's advantages are reflected. (A variety of self-deprecating advertisements)
Not only in terms of advertising creativity, but also in reverse thinking can even be used in product positioning and placeholding.
A more famous example is: Mengniu shouted the slogan "The Second Brand of Inner Mongolia Dairy" in its early days is refreshing. It not only took advantage of Yili, but also "competing for the Second" makes people more memorable.
Later, this technique was actually used by many brands, such as: the advertising slogans such as "the world's second best mobile phone" and "the best mobile phone in the eastern hemisphere" are all cases of reverse thinking taking advantage of the situation. However, although these advertisements from Hammer Mobile are eye-catching, many of them violate the Advertising Law...
Let me tell you a case that I still find quite interesting...
There is a fried chicken restaurant called Chick-fil-A, which has more than 1,700 branches in the United States, ranking first in customer satisfaction at American restaurants. There is no need to say much about good products (although I have never eaten them). What impresses Fule Chicken in marketing is that their brand mascot... is a cow...
At first, you may find it incredible, why is the mascot of a chicken shop not a chicken but a cow? ? ?
In fact, you can figure it out by thinking about it carefully. What is chicken’s biggest competitor as food?
It’s beef…Chicken burgers grab the market share of beef burgers, and chicken sandwiches grab the market of beef sandwiches…
Therefore, Fule Chicken deliberately uses cows as a cartoon spokesperson, and there is always a kind of black humor in advertising creativity. Cows always tell you to "eat more chickens"...
There is also a well-known marketing case. Melbourne made an animated commercial to promote railway safety - "The Stupid Way to Die", which is a reminder to people to pay attention to safety through various animated ways of death.
These cases can bring us a lot of inspiration, and the marketing performance of using reverse thinking may be more sensational. For example: you sell mosquito coils, you can use mosquitoes as mascots, and each advertising idea is a different way of death for mosquitoes; if you are a drug seller, you can use bacteria as mascots instead of using common images like doctors, capsule guards, etc....
In short, the way of thinking of reverse thinking is very important in marketing and promotion, and reverse creative models are also widely used. It not only impresses users by strengthening conflicts of interest points, but more importantly, this kind of promotion content is often quite interesting and can easily cause spontaneous communication from users. If used properly, it can save a lot of effort in promoting your product.
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