Tricking Broca
by Gail Vanik
Even though garden centers are primarily a visual industry with bright colors and interesting textures, another sense should be considered when planning your marketing mix: auditory.
I’m a huge fan of radio advertising because it’s one medium where you can cast a net broader than anywhere else to catch new customers. The airwaves reach far and wide, and radio worked especially well for me in Colorado when I would have gone broke advertising in every small-town newspaper within our 200-mile marketing area.
One of the keys to using radio advertising effectively is understanding Broca and how that area of your brain functions. Discovered in 1861 by the French surgeon, Paul Broca, Broca’s area is located in the frontal part of the left hemisphere of the brain and is involved in the articulation of speech and language. Without getting into the weeds too much, in very simple terms, Broca acts as the sentry to determine what messages are allowed in at any given time. We are exposed to roughly 10,000 ads or marketing messages of some kind each day so part of your job as the marketer is to figure out how to trick Broca into letting your message through.
Since Broca loathes predictability, one way to get past him is by using the element of surprise and you can do this by using unpredictable or elegant words in interesting or unusual combinations. Dr. Seuss was a master at using this technique. Think of all of the words that he “Seussed” or invented. Everyone knew exactly what he was talking about, without him having to explain at all when, in The Lorax, he coined the term a “snergelly” hose. How often have you fought with a “snergelly” hose in your garden center?
A few years ago, I was playing around with Seussing and decided to use the word “yarden” in my marketing to describe a meshing of yard and garden. Even though that word has been used for centuries as a proper name of Hebrew origin, using it in that context was different. Yet everyone knew exactly what I was referring to without any explanation.
Our garden center was located several miles from town, and through a series of exercises, the term, “inconveniently located” was identified and you can’t imagine how many people commented on that over the years. I used it at the end of my radio ads where it worked well to catch the listeners' attention because it was unpredictable. They were expecting hours, directions, or an address at the end like so many ads have, but were caught off guard by the addition of the little prefix “in.” The radio station owner asked me one day why I was still using it. I just looked at him, smiled, and said, “Didn’t you remember it?”
Another way we tricked Broca was by using music. I used to run my radio spots on a country music station because it was the most popular music in our area. It was also the strongest station with the furthest reach. My market area was vast so I had to be certain that every dollar counted. Since the name of our garden center was Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery, to trick Broca, I used music from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons as the music bed for those spots. When someone is listening to their favorite country station, expecting twang-twang, achy-breaky heart country music, then all of a sudden something classical comes over the airwaves then, wait, what? People pause and take notice when you use something unexpected.
The toll that’s been paid to the gatekeeper is the element of surprise.
Broca loves the use of unexpected words to create surprising mental images, or the use of anything else in unexpected ways. Don’t you? I challenge you to think about how you can use some of these techniques in your marketing to successfully navigate past Broca.
Like Dr. Seuss, find unique ways to trick Broca and capture your customers’ attention!
Gail Vanik is passionate about helping our smaller Garden Centers who struggle to have effective and consistent Marketing efforts.
Connect with Gail: Tel: 970-749-0453, or eMail
Gail and Vic Vanik say, "Seasoned Gardeners Consulting was born of our desire to guide others as we were once guided. We may have made it look easy, but we know what you’re going through because we’ve been there too."
With a similar enthusiasm for marketing and a keen eye for detail, Gail shines when focusing on advertising and management challenges. Read more about Gail and Vic HERE.
