Promotion is the last question

When something is not catching on, the first instinct is to make more noise. A bigger budget, a better ad, a well-known face, a discount. The question underneath all of it is how to promote the thing harder, and it is almost always the wrong question.

Promotion is the final step, and it only multiplies what is already there. If the earlier steps are missing, it multiplies nothing, at a cost.

The earlier steps begin with being honest about what you are trying to change. Something that only keeps things as they were struggles to spread, because nobody needs to tell a friend that nothing is different.

Then comes who, and the answer is never everyone. A particular person, with particular wants, worries and beliefs, someone you could describe well enough to recognise in a queue. Work made for that person can be sharp. Work made for anybody is soft by necessity.

Then the story. People do not buy the specification sheet. They buy the account they give themselves of what this choice says about them. That account has to be true, or the product will eventually let down the person who believed it, and they will say so.

The story also has to take them where they were already heading. It is close to impossible to argue a grown adult out of what they want. It is far easier to become the thing that helps them get it.

Last, it has to be something they would repeat. Not to the world, but to the few people who trust them. They will not do it as a favour to you. They will do it because telling it makes them look good, draws them closer to someone, or simply feels worth sharing.

Once all of that holds, a campaign has something to carry. Until then, a louder message is the same problem, heard by more people.