Marketers Can Borrow From Success of Urban Legends

MARK HAMSTRA

CHICAGO — Supermarket operators can create memorable messages that resonate with customers and employees by adhering to some of the same principles that make urban legends stick in people's minds, according to a keynote speaker at the Food Marketing Institute conference here last week.

“Urban legends don't have ad budgets, but people remember them,” said Chip Heath, a professor of marketing at Stanford University and a columnist at Fast Company magazine. “If we can steal the playbook of those ideas, we can get some ‘stickiness’ in our messages.”

Heath said the attributes of memorable messages like those told through urban legends tend to have several qualities in common: They are simple, unexpected, concrete, credible and emotional, and they are often spread in the form of stories. He cited several examples, including the false rumors that the Great Wall of China is the only man-made object that can be seen from space, and that people only use 10% of their brains.

Some examples of businesses that have used effective, memorable messages — often used internally to drive a diverse group of employees toward achieving a common goal — include Southwest Airlines and Trader Joe's.

Southwest's mission is simply stated to be “The Low Cost Airline.” That conveys a message to employees to behave in a way that reins in expenses — its pilots, for example, often ask control towers for the most-fuel-efficient circling and landing patterns.

Trader Joe's, the chain of small-format grocery stores featuring a range of organic, natural and gourmet items at low prices, describes its typical customer as an “unemployed college professor (who drives a very used Volvo.)” By shunning abstract demographic language in this description, Trader Joe's sends a message to its employees that is much more memorable and still conveys information.

“By having the right message, you can have thousands of employees working to make your company great,” Heath said.

Simplicity, he said, is the hardest quality for a business to focus in on, because businesses tend to have many different messages that they want to get out.

“If you say 10 things, you say nothing,” he said.

However, if business leaders focus on a single quality, it is easier for people to buy into it. As an example, he cited a Hollywood “high-concept pitch” for the movie “Alien” as being “Jaws on a spaceship.” That simple description can convey a lot of meaning to a diverse group of people and get them all pointed in the same direction, he explained.

Appealing to people's emotions is also important in the message, he said, noting that supermarkets are especially well positioned to connect with consumers emotionally because of the importance food has in people's cultures and the way they think about themselves.

“Why do people, when they move to another country, bring their supermarkets with them? Because food is an important part of people's identities,” he said.

Putting a message in a narrative format is also key. The sandwich chain Subway, for example, has gotten a lot of mileage out of its Jared Fogle campaign, because it is a story people can take an interest in.

“Stories are actually flight simulators for the brain,” he said. “You have to find the story that works for your business. If your competitive advantage is friendly, family service, you want to tell stories about friendly, family service.”