The Curse of Knowledge
In the early 1900s, Schlitz beer was the #8 beer in America.
They tried several different advertising techniques, but none of them were helping them make up any ground. Claude Hopkins, who is largely considered the Godfather of advertising, was hired to help and visited the Schlitz Brewing Company to see if he could gain any insights to use in his ads.
At the time, all the beer companies were talking about how “pure” their beer was.
The brewers took Hopkins through their process and he was amazed by how complex and rich in detail it was.
He asked them why they didn’t tell people all the things that went into making their beer so pure? Why did they try to scream louder than all the other beers on the market?
“Why,” they said, “the processes we use are just the same as others use. No one can make good beer without them.”
“But,” he replied, “others have never told the story. It amazes everyone who goes through your brewery. It will startle everyone in print.”
In the Schlitz Beer ads, he told prospects:
“All beer is cooled in plate glass room in filtered air.”
“Then the beer is filtered.”
“Then it is sterilized after being bottled and sealed.”
Schiltz was permanently embedded in the market’s mind as being exceptionally pure and gained the #1 position in the beer market.
When you are creating ads for your product, we often suffer from “The Curse of Knowledge.”
What is ordinary to you may be extraordinary to your customers.
For more tips on marketing strategy and design follow me on Twitter @MentalWeapons or check out https://sleek.bio/max
