Put your best foot forward, just make sure it is attached to your leg.

By guest columnist Tom Hayes

“Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.” ― Robert W. Service, The Cremation of Sam McGee

I wouldn’t blow my nose on it.

Last winter, my family and I rented a VRBO to get away from the Minnesota cold (Man plans. God laughs). One of the things I noticed in the bathroom was that the facial tissue, AKA Kleenex®, was “Professional Grade.” Wow, this sent my mind reeling. Were there professional nose blowers? If there were, would this tissue withstand the velocity of their prodigious exhalations? Did they bring this tissue with them to competitions, much the way pool sharks might bring a custom-made, mother-of-pearl-inlaid cues?

The term “Professional Grade” created an expectation that this tissue would be so strong you could mop the floor with it and so soft, it would prevent your nose from turning red even after a three-day nose-blowing contest.

Of course, once I put it to the test, my imaginative leaps were hurled down to the concrete. It had all the strength of convenience store coffee and its softness could pass for 3M 320 grit sandpaper.

If we tease this little consumer journey apart, there were three stages. First, the branding on the box set a high expectation of an exceptionally quality product. Two, my experience of the product was profoundly disappointing (I literally wouldn’t blow my nose with it). And three, having been mildly duped, I was more than mildly negative toward this Professional Grade Facial Tissue.

Like whoever branded that tissue box, marketers delude themselves into thinking that the more hyperbolic their promises, the more products or services they will sell. The promise they make to consumers is so untethered to what they will actually deliver, it has led to such widespread cynicism that consumers now associate Super, Extra, Best, Professional Grade and their ilk with the lowest rung. As the witches of Macbeth said, “Fair is foul.”

These marketers are vainly attempting to overcome a fundamental truth about human nature; we really don’t like being lied to. Promise us one thing and deliver another and they will punish you.

A member of the brute squad speaks 

When I was 15 years old, I was an unusual specimen. I was 6-feet tall with simeon-like arms, weighed a fit 220 pounds and had a full beard. In other words I looked like I was a 23-year-old man. While this was an excellent facade to get into the local watering hole, it had a very specific downside. The problem was that when they saw me, they thought I was in my twenties, but when I opened my mouth, I spoke like your average ninth grader. This created a horrible cognitive dissonance within the new people I met. How did they resolve this dissonance? If seeing is believing, they came to the obvious conclusion that I was either extremely immature for my age or not particularly bright. Both conclusions were devastating to my emerging identity. The lesson is, appearing radically different than your ability to deliver can be devastating to your brand. So be careful. 

Put the best face of the pumpkin forward. 

While people are loath to be lied to, they are actually quite generous when it comes to letting you tell the true part of your story that serves you best. The key is to ask yourself, “If I promise this, will my customer affirm that what I have promised is true.” By this standard, even some of the most outlandish statements can hold up. Take “BMW. The Ultimate Driving Machine.” One of the greatest themelines ever. While other cars are also excellent, for BMW drivers, their cars do fulfill the promise. There is no need for BMW to share that their cars are expensive, or hard to get into, or idiosyncratic to the point of madness. They fulfill the promise they make and that’s plenty.

So, feel free to put your best foot forward, just make sure it is attached to your leg.

About Tom Hayes
Tom and his team at Riley Hayes have been Creating with Joy since 1991. Tom is also a speaker and coauthor of Relevance: Matter More. Connect with Tom at thayes@rileyhayes.com. 

Views expressed by guest columnist reflect those of the author and not the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce.