ExchangeEveryDay Past Issues

"The world is full of friends waiting to meet you." –Marion C. Garretty

RIGHT-BRAIN, LEFT-BRAIN MARKETING

One of my favorite all time books on marketing has recently been completely updated. Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson (New York: Houghton-Mifflin, 1998) is packed with practical marketing ideas, many of which can be applied in the early childhood setting. For example, Levinson shares the following idea right-brain, left-brain thinking:

"Studies reveal that 45 percent of Americans are left-brained and react to logical appeals while ignoring emotional appeals. Another 45 percent are right-brained and are stimulated by emotional appeals, disdaining logic for the most part. The final 10 percent of us are balanced. Because most marketing is created without regard to this psychological reality, nearly half of mass marketing is wasted.  Many marketing campaigns aim in the opposite direction of about 50% of a potential audience. As a guerrilla, you can hit 100 percent of the people to whom you market if you aim your marketing at both left- and right-brained people.

"Left-brained people love logical, sequential reasoning. You offer them a brochure with ten reasons to buy from you and they'll read every word. Is that good? Not necessarily. Since half the population is left-brained and half is right-brained, you're missing half of the market. Those right-brained people, who are influenced by emotional, aesthetic appeals, have zero interest in your ten reasons to buy. So you create a brochure with gorgeous graphics and words that tug at their heartstrings. Is that good? Not necessarily, because such a brochure would miss out on all those left-brained people who don't care a whit for pretty pictures and mushy words.

"Guerrillas, therefore, are very careful to aim their marketing materials at both left-brained and right-brained people. They know that their target audience is left-brained and right-brained. So they put forth logical appeals to buy -- blended with emotional reasons. Nobody is overlooked. Their brochures have both the ten reasons to buy plus the appeals directly to the heart. This is not a big deal, but the losses suffered by ignorance of this aspect of human behavior are a humongous deal."