A Christmas Pratfall Effect

There’s a whole host of books on behavioural science out there.

The best among them is The Choice Factory. We love it. Put it on your Christmas list.

In it, author Richard Shotton talks about the pratfall effect, a psychological effect that increases a person’s likability if they make a genuine mistake.

That same phenomenon can be applied to brands and how they communicate.

For example, if you send out a Christmas newsletter and forget to change the title from November to December, then it’s a simple human error. But that human error needs to be addressed and those on the receiving end need to see some humility and genuine remorse.

For a brand, that might be sending customers a picture of a sorry looking cat.

Of course, we in no way sent our Christmas newsletter with the email headed ‘November’. (ahem)

As Einstein Marketer says, “Perhaps the most famous example of the pratfall effect in marketing is the VW Beetle campaigns of the 1950s and 60s. At the time, the car was everything that the American consumer didn’t want, small, ugly and German, and yet the car became a massive hit from its brilliant advertising campaigns.”

Julian Koenig was the brilliant copywriter who came up with the ‘Lemon’ line. It’s inspired. For those who have English as a second language, lemon means being given something useless. Using the word here to describe the physical product feature and poke fun at its supposed inadequacies is creativity and behavioural science in action. People fell in love with it.

Turning flaws and errors into genius is the opportunity when you make a pratfall.

All we have to offer is a cat.