“What is the most resilient parasite? An idea. It’s resilient. Highly contagious. Once an idea has taken a hold of the brain it’s almost impossible to eradicate.”  

In the opening line of the 2010 movie “Inception” Dom Cobb is selling the idea of an inception to a multi- millionaire. Marketing is really like performing an inception in everyday life. Even though, we don’t physically go to people’s dreams to plant ideas, we still kind of do. 

When we are marketing our products, we are essentially trying to affect people to change their behavior to choose and buy our products instead of our rivals. When people sleep, their brain analyzes a lot of information, and we also want our messages to be there. The most effective messages consist of six elements. The STEPPS. 

Social currency, Triggers, Emotion, Public, Practical value and Stories. By crafting your message using these principles you can make sure that people talk about your product or service. And nothing is better advertisement than a recommendation from a person you know.  

I will use TheEpisode- student music festival as an example in every one of the STEPPS to try and implement the ideas to use and provide an example of my own. 

Social Currency 

People want themselves to be perceived interesting. When they talk about stuff that has some kind of value to other people it makes them look good and it “grows their social currency”. Which one would you consider “higher social value”? The guy that talks about mondaine things like weather or the guy who recommends a new secret restaurant that had just been opened nearby. 

People basically live off social currency because our primitive instinct to be a part of a group is so strong. And what makes you feel like you belong in? Other people’s approval or validation. You provide them with useful or entertaining information, and they reward you with social currency. It makes the teller look good. 

Also, when you recommend a product and someone actually uses it based on your recommendation, it gives you this weird feeling of satisfaction or success. It feels good to have helped someone based on your own experience.  

People want to show others how good they are and what they have achieved. Think about military officials with their chests filled with medals, 1^st class being allowed to board before others and VIP- entrances to clubs. All of these are about social currency, showing other people you have something everyone doesn’t. Exclusivity is a strong element regarding social currency, and you should think about how to make people feel like insiders and find inner remarkability from your niche. 

Q: Does talking about your product or idea make people look good? Can you find inner remarkability and make people feel like insiders? Leverage game mechanics (like customer programmes)? 

A: Talking about TheEpisode makes you look good. It’s a new upcoming festival that a lot of people don’t know about yet and if you do, you have information that others don’t. And when it starts to gain traction, it will still make you look good due to it being the best student event experience in Jyväskylä. Inner remarkability comes from the fact it’s a new way for students to spend time with friends and make new ones. They are part of a change. The event is for students and student-minded people so it’s also an insider thing.  

Triggers 

Which one do you think gets talked about more? Disney world or Cheerios? The answer might surprise you because the boring ass cereal gets discussed way more than the world-famous amusement park. Why? People get exposed to it regularly when they go to the supermarket. Any product can generate word of mouth and it might not have anything to do with how exciting it is. It just has to be visible. When Nasa landed their drone to Mars in 1997, the Mars bars got an unexpected growth in sales because “Mars” was all over the news.  

In a research mentioned in the book (page 72) a group of students were exposed to a slogan “Live the healthy way, eat five fruits and veggies every day” and the other group to “Each and every tray needs five fruits and veggies every day”.  The ladder one’s subjects described it as corny but after the trial period, the “corny” slogan affected the participant behavior more than the first one, due to it having the word “tray” in it. Trays reminded them of the slogan as they took food on their plate. 

How to stay top of mind? By exposing your customers to cues that remind them of you in their everyday life. Understanding your customer is a key part in designing the product so it can be triggered by the environment and basically make the advertising for you.  

You can also use competitors as a trigger. We were in the marketing degree programme with other teampreneurs and saw an ad that had Santa Claus going to a gas station with his Coca-Cola- looking truck. He got busted in security cameras hiding drinking Pepsi Max behind the truck. We were absolutely mind blown. SANTA CLAUS IS DRINKING PEPSI INSTEAD OF COKE! Pepsi used the widely known association that Coca-Cola and Christmas and used it as their advantage. 

Q: What cues in the everyday environment make your customers think about your product? How can you make it come to mind more often? 

A: Overall badges are one trigger but not strong enough. They don’t show that often and when students do go out and party, most people don’t pay attention to others badge collections. So, we need something more.  

Emotion 

When trying to generate as much word of mouth as possible, we need to pick the right emotions to evoke. You have probably heard that emotions are the key to leaving a memory mark in your audience, but when going for virality, you must pick the right emotions. The arousing emotions. The ones that raise pulse and make people move. The ones that make people act.  

Sadness, contentment and boredom are unstimulating emotions because they make people passive and lower their pulse, which correlates with how much they act. A study in the book showed that when people’s pulse is low, they don’t share things that often. And the other way around. When people were told to jog for a while and look at the same content as the sitting group, they shared more of the posts. 

Positive arousing emotions like excitement, amusement, awe and negative ones like anger or anxiousness make people act. The emotion doesn’t always have to be positive, and you shouldn’t be afraid to trigger also the negative ones. Think about WWF. Their message could be about our planet dying or pandas going extinct. The message could trigger sadness, but it’s more powerful if they succeed in making people angry (towards poachers). 

Q: Does your product generate feelings? Preferably arousing emotions? 

A: TheEpisode generates excitement. Something new for a change makes people excited. When they arrive at the event, they feel awe and amusement. If you come from, for example Helsinki, you get a hosted bus ride with all the other people that are coming there also. The experience starts already on the bus. At the event there is lots to do, and you don’t have to wait in lines forever to get in. They feel amusement and awe from the experience. 

Public 

You need to make your product visible. Kind of the same thing as with triggers, which focused more on how to make it visible in everyday life, public focuses on how the product can advertise itself after being purchased. iPhone and Outlook use this when sending emails through Outlook. There is a default phrase “Sent from Outlook for iPhone” in every email you send, if you don’t modify the settings, or delete it before the message is sent. Logos in clothes and products are there because of public visibility after being purchased.  

Movember started when a small group of friends wanted to bring back the 80´s look and do something good. It started with just them, but next year after they started the Movember Foundation, the cause exploded, because – it was raising money for men’s health (emotion/social currency), mustaches were visible and reminded people of the cause (triggers). But most importantly, they made it public. They figured out a way to make an idea observable – something people can see. 

We use services and buy products our friends use. We like to imitate others around us without even realizing it. We become like the people we hang out with and people cant imitate what others are choosing and doing if we cant see the action.  

Q: Does your product advertise itself? Can people see when others are using it? If not, how can you make it public? Can it advertise itself even after purchasing? 

A: Every ticket comes with a branded badge. Students sew them to their overalls and when they go out, they do marketing on the side for us when attending parties. The event is visible in the streets in the forms of advertisement and on the event day the festival generates a lot of traffic and NOISE. Can’t miss that shit. 

Practical value 

People are interested in things that have practical value for them. You need to understand what makes a good deal to sell the idea to your customer. Think about what your product can offer or how it can help people in their lives. Can it save time, money or maybe lives? What makes your product worth buying? Why is it special? 

Previously in “social currency” we talked about how people want to be seen as interesting and belong to the group. There’s nothing more valuable than useful information. If you know about things that can help people out, you definitely want to share those things with others and not keep them to yourself. Barbers and restaurants, for example, mostly get their customers from people recommending them in some way.  

Even if your product has a wider audience like toothbrushes, it doesn’t mean it will get shared more. Something more niche like gaming communities share messages targeted to them more likely than the broad audience. They feel inclusivity and feeling of community when they talk and share information regarding their specific interest and announcements of new events, updates or tournaments provide practical value for them. 

Q: Does your product help others? How can you highlight the incredible value that the product offers? 

A: TheEpisode helps people to make new friends in the beginning of a new school year. We will need to push the community side of the event as much as possible and make sure that we have enough activities that have the community aspect tied to them. 

Stories 

They are embedded in humans by nature. Way before humans had language, we told stories on the campfire and drew paintings in caves to educate others on how to survive. And I’m sure for entertainment too. Stories are a great way to transfer information. 

A lot of stories have an underlying message that is much easier to understand in the form of a good story. We are hooked on stories so if you want people to be hooked on your idea, make it a story. I talked more on this subject on my first reflection called “Storytelling as a tool”, and you can find it on my profile. 

But it’s not enough to have a story. There are a few basic principles to follow to have a successful story regarding business and marketing. First, your story needs to involve YOU. If people don’t associate you with your story, it’s pretty much useless.  

Your product must be a crucial part of the story. It could be in the form of the hero who saves everyone or maybe it’s the secret ingredient that helps the customer (hero) to overcome their obstacles. Now these are a bit dramatic examples but in the end, stories always need to have someone to cheer for, an obstacle and a way to overcome it. You just need to make it marketable. 

Secondly, you need to tell stories people want to tell forward. They need to have either emotion or practical value and preferably both. The stronger the emotion, the better. The better the information, the better. 

Great examaple of a good use of storytelling is Googles ad campaign “Parisian love” (2010). They tell the story purely using Google search. It’s a great exmaple of creative storytelling involving their product as the critical part in the hero’s journey to overcome their obstacles. It was a huge success because it succeeded in showing the features of their product by evoking emotions and showcasing practicality. You can check it here. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnsSUqgkDwU

Other examples could be Coca-Cola which focuses on ads that promote having fun with your friends and family, and Coke being the connecting element of joy. The story is that Coke helps you (hero) to connect with your friends (obstacle that is being tackled by the world-famous drink). Simple. 

You probably know the story of the Trojan horse. What parts of it do you remember?  

Why did the wooden horse get into the city? What happened after that? How many soldiers were inside of the horse? Who were the Trojans at war with? How long had the war been going on for? What was the name of the Trojan ruler? What did he eat that day? Whose idea was to hide the soldiers inside the horse? How many people died during the war? How many lived?  

When you start to think about these things you notice most of them don’t matter to the story, so you don’t remember or even know them. Key parts are the horse getting into the city and the soldiers murdering and burning the city down. That’s it. The rest is irrelevant. 

In conclusion, don’t tell the WHOLE story, just the parts that matter and make your product one of them. 

Q: What is your Trojan horse? Is your product embedded in a broader narrative that people want to share? Is the story valuable to you? 

A: Maybe it could be something with a change of culture. More sustainable and encouraging people to drink and spend less but idk fr. Its not possible with our budget to make this very sustainable but that would be my dream. And maybe it could actually help someone someday. But thats a long way ahead.  

Conclusion 

After reading this book I started seeing ads differently. I saw different elements in them and understood how the companies use these same STEPPS in their marketing. I feel this book has significantly improved my ability and thinking in marketing. Absolutely would recommend to anyone who has an interest in marketing and wants to pursue it as a career. 

The book gave me great insight into human psychology and I do notice that some of these techniques are at least questionable. Businesses use the weakness of human mind to their advantage without us even realizing or even if we know they do it we still can’t resist. 

In my opinion it’s sad that we have to rely on these morally questionable tricks to play with people’s minds in order to sell them all kinds of shit that they don’t even need. But that’s just the reality. Everyone else uses these elements so I must also use them. Because if I don’t, I can’t compete with my competitors. I don’t think anyone (or at least most of us) want to trick people or use their psychological weaknesses to their advantage, but what else is there for us to do? 

We take influence from other peoples opinions and the expectations of society so we make decisions that we think are our own but are actually just pressure we face from others and pressure we give to others by following the expectations put on by others. It’s a circle that keeps on repeating if we don’t stop it from looping.

We could try to make products that actually help people and make their lives better in some way. Make the supply from demand and not the other way around. Think about what people really need and provide value to them without needing to trick them into buying shit. 

Because that’s just the fact. We get advertised some much useless stuff that we drown in the sea of uselessness and end up buying stuff that we don’t even want to. We should try to embrace remarkability in our lives. Use, do and buy things that matter to us.  

I don’t want to support this current state of the market. I hope you don’t either.