Cognitive dissonance in marketing: how to make selling easy

One winter day in 1971, McCann’s young copywriter Ilon Specht became frustrated.

She was chosen to write the advertisement for an expensive hair color brand called L’Oréal.

And her colleagues (mostly men) were chasing the same old ideas.

Shows a woman choosing a new hair color to be more attractive to a man.

And explain with a voice-over why the product is better than the others.

That is it.

So their discussions focused on which product features to emphasize and whether to shoot the ad next to a curtain or a mirror.

Specht hated it.

All these men didn’t understand how women felt.

They saw women from their perspective.

Forget a premium brand; those ideas wouldn’t even sell a cheap product.

So after one of those meetings, she went back to her table angrily.

And she started writing the words that occurred to her.

It was simple.

One woman started talking to the camera and explaining why she prefers L’Oréal.

But it wasn’t about attracting a man.

Her last sentence was this:

“I actually don’t mind spending more for L’Oréal. because I’m worth it.”

Specht convinced the account manager to present the daring idea to L’Oréal.

And L’Oreal executives decided to give it a try.

So actress Joanne Dusseau walked straight to the camera as she spoke Specht’s powerful words:

The result?

Women loved it.

L’Oréal was expensive.

But women didn’t care – because they we are worth it.

L’Oréal’s turnover rose beyond everyone’s expectations.

The campaign became the milestone that took L’Oréal from an emerging cosmetics brand to a powerhouse in international markets.

And “Because I’m worth it” became L’Oréal’s slogan for decades.

When justification leads to sales

Now let’s delve deeper into why the ad worked so well.

In addition to the daring for that time, Specht’s words also had a psychological aspect that made it a great success.

Female consumers had a strong belief: they should not spend a lot of money on unnecessary things.

Complacency was bad.

So up until that point, their actions were consistent with this belief.

They didn’t change their hair color or preferred a cheaper brand.

But then Specht gave them the right justification for suppress that belief and spend extra money.

And when the mental tension between the faith (indulgence is bad) and the possible action (buying an expensive cosmetic product) was solved, they started buying L’Oréal.

Social psychologist Leon Festinger called this cognitive dissonance in 1956.

Our minds crave consistency.

When our beliefs and actions are inconsistent, it irritates us.

That is why we look for ways to deal with that tension.

I will use a well-known example to show how we deal with cognitive dissonance.

Let’s think about someone who wants to quit smoking, but still smokes.

This creates a mental tension between the belief (smoking is harmful) and the action (still smoking).

So that person can:

• Change the belief: “They say five cigarettes a day are not that harmful.”
• Change the action: Quit smoking.
• Justify the belief/action: “Smoking helps me relieve my stress.”
• Ignore the new belief/action: Completely ignore that smoking is harmful.

And here’s the thing.

Understanding cognitive dissonance and how people deal with it can help you get inside the customer’s mind.

And find a better way to market your brand.

So how can you use cognitive dissonance to grow your business?

Three points to use cognitive dissonance for marketing your brand:

1. Look for unresolved mental tensions

People always judge your brand based on existing beliefs.

The beliefs they have learned from society or previous experiences.

As?

An example is the relationship between price and quality.

If something is expensive, we believe it should be of high quality.

If something is cheap, the opposite applies.

So brands that claim both cause mental tension.

You claim to be high quality and very cheap?

It could be true.

But people won’t believe it.

That’s why brands at the edges are easier to understand and more credible.

Swatch or Rolex.

Kia or Rolls Royce.

But if you want to position the brand somewhere in the middle, you have to work harder to resolve the tension.

IKEA is a brand that has achieved such a position.

It is not the cheapest, nor the luxury.

It’s somewhere in the middle.

But it’s clear value considerations that makes it believable: it is far away from the city and you have to put it together yourself.

Reasonable.

That makes it credible when IKEA claims that their furniture is of high quality at affordable prices.

So first think about the mental stresses you may face.

Different beliefs in the customer’s mind can cause these:

• Industry related: “Banks are greedy.” “Advertising is expensive.” “Real estate is always a good investment.”
• Technology related: Privacy versus personalization, simplicity versus complexity, AI is good versus it’s the end of the world
• Behavioral: Self-indulgence versus value, productivity versus entertainment, sustainability versus convenience

2. Choose how you are going to solve it

In one scene from Mad Men, Don Draper uses these words to explain advertising:

“It’s a billboard on the side of the road that screams reassurance that whatever you do is okay. You’re fine.”

He was right.

What he meant was to resolve any mental tensions that customers may have.

Just like in the smoking example, customers deal with tension in different ways.

And your brand can help them solve this problem in one way.

Some examples of where brands have done this successfully:

• Change the belief: Help customers change their beliefs on a topic. Airbnb changed people’s belief that staying in a stranger’s home is dangerous. Dove changed what women believed about beauty.
• Change the action: Find people who already have strong beliefs. Align their inconsistent actions with the belief. Such as environmentally conscious people who buy an electric car or use solar energy. Or health-conscious people who buy organic food at Whole Foods.
• Justify the action or belief: We talked about L’Oréal’s ‘Because I’m worth it’. Another example is that people buy a Rolex because it is a Rolex good investment. Or Harley Davidson justifying the biker lifestyle because it is so everything for freedom.

You see how widespread it is.

People crave for a medicine to solve their mental tensions.

And when a brand helps them, that brand immediately becomes more valuable in the customer’s life.

But of course it requires it Brightness.

You need to know what your brand stands for.

And you have to know how you are going to resolve the tension.

But when done right, it’s like a cheat code to building a brand that matters.

3. Kill buyer’s remorse

I saved an important one for the end.

Buyer’s remorse is also cognitive dissonance.

Yes, that guilt we all feel after purchasing something.

And that means that customers are the most vulnerable immediately after a purchase.

They stress themselves with mental tension:

“Did I make the right decision?”

“Can this company deliver what they promise?”

“Is this product really good?”

So it is crucial to help them relieve this tension.

Joey Coleman talks about the importance of this in his book “Never lose a customer again.”

He says 20-70% of new customers leave or initially decide not to work for the company anymore 100 days of the relationship.

So you spend all that money to sell your product or service.

Your team spends months optimizing metrics like ROAS and CAC.

And boom.

All that effort goes to waste due to buyer’s remorse.

So here’s a big favor you can do for your business.

Map all customer touchpoints after the purchase.

And make them feel like they made the right decision.

Show that you appreciate their trust.

Show that you are interested.

Even simple actions can make a big difference.

Such as actively informing you about the delivery of products and sending a mini gift with the package.

Or show your enthusiasm to a new customer with a personal message/call.

That way you kill buyer’s remorse.

You too drastically increases the chance that customers will stay with your brand longer.

It creates a win-win-win scenario:

Satisfied customer, strong brand, more profit.

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