More Creates Less or Scarcity and the Starbuck Effect
17th January 2007
When it is rare, it is good or at least that what the CLARRCS cue of scarcity suggests to the peripheral processor. The name of the tactic suggests its operation: make less of something and you make it appear more valuable. Thus, put a timer on the sale and countdown to zero making time rare. Start with a total number of products available, countdown to zero making availability rare. What else can you do?
How about the Starbuck Effect?
Starbuck comes to town and solves your problems. Tornadoes and lightning tearing up your house and home? Just buy this whiz bang whirligig, put it on your house, and you’ll never fear from rain or wind or lightning. Drought parching your land, killing your livestock, burning your crops. Pay $100 and Starbuck will make it rain. Don’t ask how, do what he says, and, brothers and sisters, you’ll be dancing in the mud. Starbuck, the central fictional character in the play and movie, “The Rainmaker,” the 1956 classic starring Burt Lancaster as Starbuck and Katherine Hepburn as Lizzie, demonstrates the skills of persuasion in classic huckster style, but wait, there’s more going on here than Hollywood.
See, the movie begins with Starbuck standing on his wagon, drumming up a crowd, then inveigling them to buy his new scientifically proven lightning rod before the next big storm hits the prairie and destroys everything. Starbuck demolishes everyone’s Midwestern skepticism with his charm, energy, and smooth line and when they’re properly primed and ready to be cooked, Starbuck runs his scarcity play, but by using more to create less.
He picks out a plain little girl staring up at him in puppy love wonder, tells her and the crowd that she’s a beautiful girl and in honor of her good looks, Starbuck will give her a whirligig for free! “Look at that folks. So light even a pretty little girl can hold it.”
“Now, folks, the next one is for sale for 25 cents. Who’ll take that? You, sir? That’s 25 cents.”
“Now, folks, the next one costs a dollar . . . ” and the scarcity trap is sprung. Act now! Or else pay a lot more. Starbuck creates a marketplace when he pulls up the wagon and hollers up a crowd. Then he creates demand with his patter. Finally, he creates scarcity by raising the price with each sale. And, you know, you just know in your bones, that when the market slows down because the price is too high, Starbuck will bring it back down and if anyone who bought at the higher price is still around, Starbuck will sell them a whirligig extension device for half price.
So, when it is rare and you’ve got a low WATT processor, it is good and you’ve got a sale. And Starbuck shows us how to create scarcity by raising prices. What a machine!
(Non-persuasion sidebar: The movie, “The Rainmaker,” is not that good. Katherine Hepburn is horribly miscast as the plain, but spunky Lizzie who discovers her inner beauty with the con man, Starbuck. Burt Lancaster, however, as Starbuck, steals the show even though he’s the minor character. Starbuck is one of those rare ficitional characters that seems to run away from the creator’s control. Classic examples of the great, unruly characters are Iago with Shakespeare’s “Othello” and Satan in Milton’s epic poem, “Paradise Lost.” If you read the plays or poem, you come away enthralled with the bad guy, Iago or Satan or Starbuck, and wish that the story was all about them rather than that boring Othello and clueless Desdemona or Adam and Eve or Lizzie and File. If you’ve never seen a Burt Lancaster movie, this is a nice part, but a poor movie. Burt was a major league and unique talent. Check him out in “Elmer Gantry” or “The Professionals” or “The Buccaneers” or, well, just about anything he did. He was as beautiful as Brad Pitt, but a bigger man with incredible charisma, charm, and honesty.)
Remember, though, the Starbuck effect. You do more to make less and create scarcity.