a single source, nothing corroborates it

Lead with the flaw your buyer is looking for

Put the worst thing about the product at the front instead of burying it: a cough syrup built award winning advertising around how vile it tastes and passed the large pharmaceutical brands to become the best selling one in its country on a fraction of their budget. The sharper version uses your own bad reviews. One training company advertised its one star reviews from students complaining the programme was too hard, aimed at marketers sick of promises about easy money.

The method

1. 01

   Advertise your one-star reviews when the complaint is exactly what your real buyer is looking for.

2. 02

   Lead your advertising with the worst thing about the product instead of burying it under the benefit.

What it returned

• $10k

  CXL built an ad out of one-star reviews from students who said the programme was too hard, aimed at marketers who were tired of guru-style promises about making $10k in ten days.

• 1992

  Buckley's built an award-winning campaign around how vile its cough syrup tastes rather than only claiming it works, and by 1992 it had passed the large pharmaceutical brands to become the best-selling cough syrup in Canada on a fraction of their advertising budget.

Sources

• Pratfall Effect - Why We Buy 🧠Katelyn Bourgoin · customercamp.co · Media & Education Turn your “flaws” into features and overcome skepticism · undated