In the 1960s, the tetanus vaccination was still relatively new, and many people were not getting it despite its lifesaving potential. So, a professor at Yale University decided to conduct a study to see how he could convince more people to get vaccinated. Recruiting a group of volunteers from his classes, he handed out booklets with information about tetanus. Half the students were given pure statistics about the symptoms of tetanus, the value of prevention, and the information that they could get a free tetanus shot from the campus medical centre. The other half were given a booklet with gory pictures of infected wounds, dramatic descriptions of what happens when you don’t get the shot, and the same information about getting the vaccine from the campus medical centre.
When asked immediately after reading the booklet how likely they were to get vaccinated, the students shown the version which leaned on fear tactics were more likely to say they perceived tetanus as a threat and would get the shot. That much, perhaps, is not surprising. However, what was surprising was what happened next. When the professor interviewed the students three months later, he found that the ones in the high fear group, who had said at the time that they were more likely to get the shot, had not been any more likely to get it than the ones who were only given statistics and data. More surprisingly still, in both groups the uptake had been very low – only 3% of them had actually got the shot.
So, what happened? Well, emotion is certainly a driving factor in our decision making. It is sometimes referred to as valance, the emotional register which impacts our though processes. In marketing, certain valances are known to be activators, and others are dampeners. Activator valances are emotions such as anger and fear, because people who are angry or worried are more likely to take action. Examples of dampener valances are sadness and contentment, because we are more likely to become apathetic and inactive when feeling these emotions. Valance-driven marketing works very well on social media, because it creates an instant reaction. If you see something that makes you angry or worried, you are more likely to comment, or share, or interact in other ways. This is why so much social media content leans into driving heightened emotions, because that’s what gets people to interact. The problem that arises is that some people seem to think that this is how all marketing works, and as the tetanus experiment demonstrates, it does not.
The problem with the tetanus experiment was that the students were not offered a tetanus jab right there and then. If they had been, most people in the group with the high fear booklet would have got them, but the goal was to get them to go to the medical centre. This involved booking an appointment and physically travelling there. It was a multistep process, which took time. What the experiment proved was that scare tactics may elicit a strong immediate response, but that sentiment does not last long. The fear receded as quickly as it came, and then there was no difference between the students who had been scared, and the students just given statistics. In marketing campaigns where the goal is to get people to take a certain action at some point in the future, valance is not particularly useful.
The tetanus experiment did not end there, however. The professor ran it again, but this time with a minor tweak. The booklets remained mostly the same – 50% were given a high fear one, 50% were shown textbook information – except that now the last page contained a map to the campus medical centre, and opening times. The results? The number of people from each group getting a shot within three months rose from 3% to 28%.
But why? Students already knew where the medical centre was. The opening times were posted outside it. So, this wasn’t new information to them. But, by providing it in the context of talking about tetanus, it changed the booklet from being an abstract medical lecture into a practical and personal piece of advice. It juxtaposed them within it. It not only explained the value of the tetanus shot, but it made it about them, almost like one of those maps saying “you are here”. We are bombarded with information constantly. Even if a message does resonate with us, there’s a good chance it won’t stick in our minds before something else takes our attention away from it. There is only so much we are able to do, and ultimately what we decide to do may not be based on emotion, or even logic, but on what we feel is most practical and personal. It needs to fit into our schedule, or it won’t work for us.
This concept is now being adopted by larger corporations. For example, supermarkets will runs ads which show products they want to sell, and then use your location to show you where your local store is. It’s not that they think you don’t already have this information; it’s that by showing you the store you (presumably) already visit, you are linking the abstract idea of buying something to the physical location you have already been to. That makes it more likely that you will go there again, and buy something in the advert when you’re there.
By making your marketing practical and personal, you demonstrate how your product or service fits into someone’s busy life. You offer not just a reason why someone would want it, but make them feel like it’s already tangible and in their sphere. You take an abstract idea and anchor it in something that’s already real to them. That is more powerful than any emotion could ever be.
