On top of a yellow cab, I saw a great Uber-busting commercial.
Since Uber blew up, it has decimated the taxi and black car businesses and a number of competitors have tried to fight back.
A common advertisement you see attempts to market against Uber’s “surge pricing,” which is of course designed to appeal to your bottom line.
It is a decent ploy, but it’s weak influence, given it’s only an occasional pain and many Uber customers are less price sensitive anyways.
The commercial I saw today—”Real New Yorkers Ride Yellow”—emblazoned in yellow LED on top of a cab was much better, as it appeals to something deep in each of us.
That is, our sense of IDENTITY.
This slogan challenges you to answer, “Are you are a real New Yorker?”
And because real New Yorkers tend to be damn parochial, and tourists too want to do what real New Yorkers do, the slogan provokes you.
By leveraging their influence against your identity—known as identity-level influence—they are more likely to hit you on your real bottom line.
Here’s two ways a couple of my clients have recently used this device.
With an employee whom my client wants to “step up” into a larger role, he said:
1. I know, [name], you already see yourself as playing a much bigger role here.
2. And it’s obvious that in many ways you are already playing that role.
3. Being a leader of the business, it seems to me that you would also have a lot of impact by doing [X, Y, Z].
Another client, trying to get his three year-old son to go to bed on his own, said:
1. You are a big boy now, right?
2. And big boys need to get their sleep, don’t they?
3. By going to bed on time, aren’t you being a big boy?
Here you see two different delivery mechanisms (the first using commands, the second using questions to create a “Yes set”) using the same device, deeply hooking their influence into that person’s sense of identity.
Try it for your yourself. And, on yourself…