The loyal sidekick of marketing bros everywhere, trauma marketing is a tactic no one remembers inviting to the party, but one that’s smeared itself across campaigns from Toronto to Timbuktu.
But here’s the kicker: Haven’t we all been through enough?
In case you’re new here - or this all sounds a bit dramatic - here’s a quick definition of trauma marketing:
Trauma marketing uses actual traumatic events that are likely to have impacted an audience, in order to sell products or services. This could entail leaning on widespread issues (such as pandemics, world hunger or global warming) to unite brands and their consumers. It could also involve putting fear into an audience, by inferring what could happen if they didn’t buy a particular product or service.
Okay, it wasn’t that quick.
Trauma marketing in action
1. You will be poor, alone, fat, homeless and will probably die young if you don’t sign up to my course.
It’s been proven that presenting a common problem is a critical part to any direct response framework. We’ve been there; we’ve done that.
But there are some that take it too far. I know you’ve seen them.
They usually hang around on LinkedIn and Instagram, uploading photos of themselves with someone else’s car. They play hard on consumer insecurities about inadequacy and failure.
Most claim they’ve “been where you are today”. Usually, this claim is followed by some day-ruining insight about how your business (or your life) is doomed to fail if you don’t follow this one tip. Said tip, of course, is trapped behind a paywall. So get your wallet out.
2. We will put an end to racial inequality with this cold, refreshing can of Pepsi.
Pepsi knows that 64% of consumers would rather support a brand that stands for something.
That’s why they allegedly piggy-backed off the Black Lives Matter movement to sell soft drinks. In the now-removed ad, Kendall Jenner is seen handing a can of Pepsi to a police officer in the midst of a street riot. Since the ad aired around the time that police brutality against black people in America was a major feature in the news, critics say Pepsi used the BLM movement for their own benefit. Not very nimbly, I might add.
But Kendall afterwards said she felt “really, really bad”, so that’s okay, then.
(If you want a laugh, check out Twitter’s response to the Pepsi ad.)
3. In times like these…
It feels like no blog in 2021 is complete without some mention of the pandemic. But it’s relevant, I swear.
When any piece of marketing starts with “in times like these” or some other variation, it’s telling us that this brand knows they need to switch up their messaging to empathise with consumers. They know we’re all in it together. It’s COVID against the rest of us.
Sounds good on the surface. And now we’re at the point where we’ve heard the same words so often that they fall on deaf ears.
But this is a form of trauma marketing. This is tapping into widespread consumer emotions to remind them that they feel shit, and how such-and-such a brand is here to help.
The thing is that we can’t simplify audiences in this way. Each is an individual fighting their own battles within this chaotic mess of a time, and a glass of Aperol Spritz probably isn’t going to help. Not once tomorrow rolls around, anyway.
Don’t consumers need a break?
Our generation as a whole has never lived through a time as traumatic as this one. We’re all going through a kind of shared, global PTSD. ⅓ of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression, a definitive sign of the toll that COVID-19 is having on the world.
But despite that, brands continue to use trauma as a marketing tool in 2021.
Do we really need to inflict more trauma on consumers every time they flick through Instagram or turn on the TV?
Watch out for the following in your copy. If it’s there, you might be playing the trauma hand too aggressively:
- Telling consumers they need something
- Only accepting clients that are “serious” or make fast decisions
- Telling consumers they’re inadequate as they are
- Using a past or current traumatic event to stir emotions
- Making huge guarantees but only on some condition
Giving consumers a deadline in which to take action if they want to avoid missing out
But hear me out - doesn’t trauma marketing work?
Admittedly, scarcity marketing - a form of trauma marketing - is effective. This plays on a prospect’s FOMO (fear of missing out, but you already knew that). There’s a proven psychological theory that as humans, we want the thing that everyone else wants but not everyone else can have.
When we add urgency into the mix, we’ve got a potent cocktail to force down the necks of prospects. The kind that makes them loosen the purse strings.
If you’re still not convinced, take a look at Black Friday. Take a look at the long early morning queues outside tech stores and the overburdened website crashes. And take a look at this stat: 68% of consumers say they would buy something within 24 hours after experiencing FOMO.
You yourself might have fallen prey to scarcity marketing; it’s a money-maker. In a realm where fast fashion seems to run the world, that merge of discount and deadline is everywhere. Why? ‘Cause it works.
Finding the sweet spot
We’ve established that we get ahead with scarcity. How we use this tool is up to us as copywriters. Geoff Kullman, in his podcast on The Psychology of Copywriting, advocates for “trauma-informed marketing”. He says that we can write without using “false scarcity” or “perceived scarcity”.
In fact, if writers have to resort to trauma marketing, they’re probably just not that good of a writer. And they should go back to copywriting academy, or whatever.
Although it might add a few more dollars to the bank account, creating a false sense of scarcity is pretty much the opposite of serving your audience. Relying on stress responses, Geoff says, just doesn’t feel right. It invokes a “little queasy feeling” that stops him from jamming timers and FOMO into his copy.
The same goes for playing on the pandemic, the terror of being poor or general global issues. If we’re purposely injecting fear into our audiences, are we really being ethical?
Trauma-informed care, an approach used in therapy and counselling, tells us not to re-traumatise others. Which seems obvious. We can use the principles of trauma-informed care in our copy in a few ways, as suggested by Geoff. They are:
- Safety - we’re responsible for the emotional safety of our audience
- Choice - our audience has control over the decisions they make
- Collaboration - we invite others to help make decisions
- Trustworthiness - we speak with clarity, consistency and honesty
- Empowerment - we use education and value in our marketing
So think twice before inflicting unnecessary FOMO. And think thrice before starting any copy with the words “in these unprecedented times…”
