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November 02, 2007

Advertising and Motivation: How's Your Aim?

Recently I re-read advertising great Alvin Eicoff's book "Or Your Money Back". For those of you who aren't familiar with this book or its author, I highly recommend you locate a copy. Especially if you're interested in successful direct response advertising.

There's a lot in this book I could comment on, but one section stood out at me this time that I don't recall from my first couple of readings. It's not specifically about direct response advertising, but it still holds some insights for advertising professionals.

In chapter 14, which is called "Some of My Best Friends Are Entrepreneurs", Eicoff recounts all of the successful entrepreneurs he came to know as an ad professional. It's an extremely long list. Against that backdrop, he provides "the four common characteristics that made them extraordinarily successful entrepreneurs."

In the interest of understanding human behavior - which all greate advertising people must be do - check these out:

"First, they had severe inferiority complexes. Because of this, they constantly were trying to prove themselves day by day, to show their friends, family and business associates that they could succeed. The inferiority complex is insatiable - feed it one success and that only whets its appetite for the next one. This complex fuels the entrepreneur's drive. He constantly strives to overcome obstacles, no matter how large they might be. He's not content with making a million dollars, but desires to multiply that figure ad infinitum to accumulate more than he needs in ten lifetimes... No matter how successful he becomes, the inferiority complex is always there, telling him that he must prove himself again today."

The second is "guts." A willingness to take outlandish risks for anything he believes in. He rushes in where wise men fear to tread.

The third is intuition. "They know intuitively what to gamble on."

The fourth and final ingredient to the "formula" for success according to Eicoff's observations of entrepreneurs is "being unaware of what one can't do." Here he goes on to provide examples of people who went forward when others told them it couldn't be done. Henry Ford was told he couldn't mass produce a car. People told Marty Himmel nobody would pay $5 for a tube of toothpaste. And they told Abe Plough that there was no market for children's aspirin.

So why write a post about this?

Fast forward to this century (Eicoff's book was written in the early 1980's) to something I read from another book recently.

It has to do with our definition of success. In the book Success Built to Last, the authors Jerry Porras, Stewart Emery and Mark Thompson take a look at "success" and note that it is defined (from the dictionary) as:

1. the achievement of something planned or attempted
2. impressive achievement, especially the attainment of fame, wealth or power
3. something that turns out as planned or intended
4. somebody who has a record of achievement, especially in gaining wealth, fame or power

The authors of Success Built to Last state "the (above) standard description (of success) must have been written for budding sociopaths."

Wait - who's right? Are we to have pity or admiration for Eicoff's entrepreneur friends? Do we revere them or reject them? And what are the implications here? As advertisers, it's imperative that we understand what motivates people. How else can we craft messages and media plans that deliver profitable business results?

And the same goes for entrepreneurs - business owners, because people comprise each business. We're humans before we're employees. What motivates people in this context?

So what's the insight here?

My take: Happiness. The sociopathic entrepreneurs described by Eicoff's "Four Factors" were seeking happiness, ultimately, even though by Eicoff's admission they missed by a lot. They never got rid of that inferiority complex no matter how "successful" they became. Instead, they suffered immeasurably - just imagine going through life in that state of mind.

The moral of the story: You'll hit what you aim at - that's not the hard part. The hard part is figuring out what to aim at.

Is what you're aiming at going to get you what you actually want?

As advertisers, we have to be on the lookout for what motivates people. More importantly we have to be watching for how behavior-drivers may shift in a society after many years of one approach proving insufficient at producing the desired results.

Aim well.

Posted by Brett Astor at 12:47 PM | Permalink