Posts in Marketing
When customers take risks, you grow closer

Susie has always worn sensible lipstick. She stops in to pick up another tube, and you introduce her to a fire-engine red she never would have picked up herself.

Tom just got a smartphone and barely knows how to use it. With a few taps, your app lets him start a family chat thread his kids are eager to use. Now he's downloading emoji packs, customizing backgrounds, texting with friends abroad and in the US.

Jake is graduating from IKEA and is finally buying his first piece of forever furniture. He was intimidated to walk into your store, but you made him feel welcome, like he's the kind of person who could own an Eames chair.

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Marketing, Influence and PersuasionWes KaoMarketing, Influence and Persuasion
Zz plants: the beauty of low overhead

Indoor plants have a way of making a space feel like home. If you want to get a plant, the top question isn't "Where can I get a fiddle leaf fig to make my rental look like it belongs in Architectural Digest?" The first question is: how much effort do I want to commit to keep this plant alive?

Because a plant that's dead by next week doesn't do you any good.

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MarketingWes KaoMarketing
Drawing someone in vs getting them to stay

When you're at the mall and walk by the Gap, you might see a rainbow assortment of colorful t-shirts on the front table. There's bright coral, lemon yellow, vibrant blue. You decide to go in and take a look. Most of the time, you'll walk out with a shirt that's grey, white, black, navy.

The folks at corporate HQ know this. As an analyst at Gap Inc, it used to be my job to make sure that inventory levels reflected what customers actually bought, not what they thought they wanted to buy.

I think this is a great analogy that applies to marketing, especially for complex and technical startups.

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MarketingWes KaoMarketing
33% rule

When you're launching a thing, it's helpful to think about the process in three roughly equal parts. What's considered 'a thing'? I define a product or project as something that you're creating to put out into the world.

It could be a web product, website, app, zine, publication, course, poll, physical product, blog post, album, video, collection, survey, directory, event, book, and many other items.

You might be setting yourself up for disappointment if you think that one part of the launch process is 90% of the battle, but it's really only 33% of it.

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MarketingWes KaoProduct, Marketing
Comparisons heighten drama

Before-and-after comparisons tend to catch my eye in magazines or ads. I’ve been thinking recently, why are before-and-afters so alluring? What draws the viewer in? Why do brands use feature these photos?

In general, comparisons heighten drama, because they make the difference between two objects more apparent. Your mind skips over the part where the two items are similar, and will naturally focus on the point of difference. Comparisons direct your attention in an intentional way.

Before-and-afters are a specific type of comparisons, because it shows the same person/object over time.

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Storytelling, MarketingWes KaoStorytelling, Marketing
Here's what the Airbnb ads could have looked like

Disrupting a static industry is hard. It’s even harder when the city you’re headquartered in hates you.

People are angry with Airbnb for recent billboards and bus shelter ads in San Francisco. The ads were a cheeky way to allude to Proposition F, which is up for voting in the next few weeks. The messages refer to the estimated $12 million in hotel taxes that Airbnb paid to the city in the last year.

But the campaign came across as passive aggressive and smug. Social media erupted, and Airbnb is taking the posters down.

This isn’t simply a local issue.

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MarketingWes KaoMarketing, Ads
The story we tell ourselves: Farmer's market vs Safeway

At Safeway, there are pricing signs everywhere that allow you to compare exactly how much something costs. Milano cookies are 2/$5, or a package that's $7 is actually 23.5 dollars per ounce if you break it down. 

There are coupon inserts in the front of the store. There are bright yellow signs saying peaches are $1.99 per pound this week, hanging over the sign that says that they're normally $2.49.

If you go to a farmer's market, GOOD LUCK trying to find how much that organic kale costs. There's typically little mention of price anywhere.

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Marketing, StorytellingWes KaoProduct, Framing ideas, Marketing, Storytelling