My wife, Kay, writes an extremely funny blog with a very clever title, Kay’s Blog. You should read it.
Like me, Kay tends to get off on a rant when she finds something that strikes her as funny. Lately, she’s been pointing out all the "Results Not Typical" advertisements and marketing promotions we’re expose to every day.
For example, you see an a full page magazine ad for someone who lost 300 pounds on some weird, exotic diet. There’s always a poor quality, fuzzy "Before" picture, and a high-res, well-lit, probably PhotoShopped "After" picture. Below the "After" picture are the tiny words, "Results Not Typical."
I’m not going to steal Kay’s thunder here and write really funny stuff about all the examples we see every day. That’s Kay’s job. But it does make me look at this trend from a marketer’s perspective.
Certainly we want to promote our products and services in their best light, but when do we go past truthfulness and cross into the grayness of "Truthiness," as coined by comedian Steve Colbert? As a professional speaker myself, I’ve seen a lot of really well edited demo videos that make the speaker look like one of history’s all-time great orators. But, frankly, some of those speakers need to put Results Not Typical at the bottom of the screen.
Trust is the most important reason why people buy from us and continue to buy from us. Trust comes from Truthfulness.
Everything walks the talk. How we communicate with our marketplace, whether through full page magazine ads, demo videos, or face-to-face, walks the talk. And the last thing you want your market to think about you is Results Not Typical.
