You’ll recall that workers with the guerilla marketing firm, Interference, Inc., managed to get themselves arrested under terrorism-related charges for their activities in Boston as they put up bomb-like devices around town aimed at getting an audience for a new cable TV cartoon show. Under the premise that all publicity is good publicity, did this persuasion and influence stunt work? We now have some tentative evidence.

And, it appears that all publicity is good publicity. Various indicators of viewership show favorable changes. For example, hits on the cable TV website were up 77% following the media uproar and actual viewership of the new program also rose 20%. Whether any of these increases will hold remains to be seen, of course, and the point of the Interference activity was to get new eyeballs and not necessarily to hold them. As a result, I’d have to say that Interference did its job.

Remember, all bad persuasion is sincere and Interference is sincerely insincere.

Did you hear about it?

Two applied persuasion researchers are in jail for terrorist activities, arrested by Boston Police for planting suspicious bomblike devices in and around Boston. Authorities initially set bail at $100,000 for each perpetrator. Man, and you thought persuasion was easy?

Yeah, there is a catch to all of this. See, the two guys were doing guerilla marketing for the launch of a new cable cartoon show on the Cartoon Network. The Network hired the guerilla marketing firm, Interference, Inc., to handle the promotion. Guerilla marketing aims at gaining attention through street level, face to face, and sometimes in your face activities. It is, in essence, smartly done street theater that attracts a crowd and promotes a simple message. The crew at Interference, Inc. (a great company name, huh?) got the contract to promote the new cartoon show that features the adventures of a talking milkshake, so Inteference Inc. created a boxlike device with blinking lights and wires coming out of it, then stationed these devices across Boston and many other large cities in the US over the past couple of weeks.

So far, this is just fun guerilla marketing, but apparently the authorities in Boston got freaked out over these mysterious, bomblike devices popping up on freeways and in tunnels and managed to arrest two Interference workers. There is a lot more to this story than we currently know. This promotion has been going on for at least a couple of weeks across the US and yesterday, the Boston Police get nervous and arrest two young men. What scares me is that if the Boston Police genuinely saw these devices as potential security threats, why the hell did it take them over two weeks to notice them?

Everyone involved is apologizing (Interference, the Cartoon Network, and Turner Broadcasting which owns the Cartoon Network), but I don’t take it too seriously. I’m guessing that some cop or prosecuting attorney got honked off for some silly reason and wildly over-reacted here. For example, when the two Interference workers were first arrested, their bail was set at $100,000. It’s already been reduced to $2500. That would seem to indicate that adults are now getting involved in this case.

Meanwhile, the “bad guys” in this case (Interference, Cartoons, Turner) have got to be crying crocodile tears over this. They are getting a phenomenal amount of free media coverage today over this event and everyone is getting their name in the paper big time. Under the assumption that there is no such thing as bad media attention, it appears that the applied persuasion guys are the big winners right now.

For me, well done guerilla marketing demonstrates by contrast one of the Rules: All bad persuasion is sincere. This attempt by Interference Inc. is good persuasion because it definitely achieved its persuasion goal: It got attention to its message. And it did so in a most insincere way. The initial actions of the Boston authorities illustrates the exact problem when you are sincere in your efforts to “persuade” others. Boston police sincerely believed they had a problem on their hands and sincerely charged Interference guys. And they look sincerely foolish doing so.

While there is much to persuasion that is art, the basic principles possess a compelling feature: science supports them. We know what we know about the Elaboration Likelihood Model or CLARCCS cues or Dissonance Theory or Classical Conditioning is based upon a wide variety of experimental studies that systematically manipulate and control persuasion variables, then quantitatively assess their impact. The Primer chapter on Prove It! very, very briefly outlines the scientific approach to persuasion and recommends those scientific procedures as tests everyone should use when assessing any persuasion claim. I also recommend science even with its limitations as an excellent foundation for understanding the world.

This argument gets a lot of support in academic and research circles, but in the real world most people most of the time don’t have time for science and tend to go with a Darwinian approach (if I survive doing this it must be okay). I think a lot of businesses tend to operate that way. So what?

Well, today we get yet another news story about a suffering pharma that has to make huge jobs cuts to survive. Pfizer is cutting 10,000 jobs including over 2,000 sales representatives. Pharmas are often held to be prototypes of hardnosed persuasion agents who use whatever tactic that works to achieve success. They aggressively advertise and market information direct to consumers that drives people to demand pills from physicians. So why are these guys cutting 10% of their overall workforce? Have their persuasion tactics finally caught with them as consumers and physicians rise in angry protest?

Nah. They lost their patents. And they haven’t got new drugs in the anywhere in the pipeline that they can patent.

Business is easy when you’ve got the market cornered. And when you lose the corner, then all that’s left is your skill. And, I’d argue that pharmas in particular have fallen victim to several of the Rules.

Power corrupts persuasion.

Patents are “power” and when you’ve got power you don’t really need to be persuasive. When the patents expire, your power expires, and then all that remains is skill.

Great persuaders don’t need rich uncles, kindness from strangers, or third party vote splitters.

The vaunted persuasion reputation of the pharmas has to be adjusted here because it is apparent that pharma depend upon the action of a third variable to make it happen.

This is a complicated post, so let’s clarify and recap.

First, I am not gloating over the economic challenges facing Pfizer or any pharma. This is awful news. At one level it is the “creative destruction” of capitalism, but at another it is serious pain and suffering for thousands of families. Second, the “vaunted” reputation of pharmas is not solely of their own creation. I think many people in media and in the health and medicine communities have wildly exaggerated the operation of pharmas in much the same way people villianize big oil. Advocacy groups have made pharmas appear to be manipulative, deceitful, and conniving. Given these terrible economic problems of pharmas, not just with Pfizer, it’s hard to believe the evil stereotype of those big, bad drug guys when their stock prices are dropping and they’re laying off employees by the thousands.

That said, I still can point of this story as both an illustration of a scientific approach to understanding things and as an illustration of the Rules. Pharmas have taken a Darwinian approach to their sales approach and as long as they were surviving, everything was hunky-dorey. Now, the sky is falling and in a very predictable way and one that a more scientific approach could foresee, forestall, and perhaps prevent. Further, that Darwinian approach blinded them to the Rules and has left them in a weakened position.

I’d expect that pharmas will now take science and persuasion considerably more seriously. Without patents, they’ll have to make money the old fashioned way.

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.

This past weekend I began a persuasion seminar with 14 smart and interesting people in Charleston, WV for a WVU Corporate Communication program. During our discussion of CLARCCS cues, one participant, John, shared an interesting observation he’d made on a shopping trip that, at the time, didn’t seem quite that meaningful, but upon learning about the cues, he realized he’d discovered a very powerful persuasion tactic.

See, John was shopping for a new computer at one of those large office and equipment chain stores. During checkout, the sales clerk left John alone and while John was waiting, he noticed a small printed sign taped to the cash register that had several typed lines of instruction in sequence. Being curious and left alone, John read the page. In essence, the sign describe a team approach to persuading customers.

When a customer entered the store, Employee1 would make a friendly greeting and unless there was an immediate request, the Employee1 would walk away. Shortly thereafter, Employee2 was directed to contact the customer and point out current sales and again unless there was an immediate request, Employee2 would then walk away. Employee3 would then enter the scene with a “how may I help you?” approach. Employee3 would then work with the customer to connect her or him to the needed product or service and then direct the customer to Employee4 who would complete the transaction at the register.

Now, the pattern of Employee behavior looks like normal business behavior. The novel, interesting, and useful persuasion tactic, however, comes from the deliberate sequencing of steps through different employees. By assigning different specific communication tasks to each role in this play, the business makes it more likely that each customer will “get” all the information the business wants out there. Furthermore, by distributing each message across multiple sources, it becomes less likely that the customer will feel like a persuasion target and more like someone shopping in a store with a lot of helpful agents.

This team persuasion tactic is a brilliant application of the principles of persuasion. It provides a formal and ongoing structure for the business to deliver persuasion (that typed sign on the register). It hides the persuasion attempt across multiple sources. It has got to be great for team morale as each person on the team will play different parts in the scene. You can imagine the signaling they invent and use, just like a baseball coach on third base giving signs. And, I’ve got to believe that team persuasion goes right to the bottom line with increased sales and customer satisfaction with the greatest benefit of all: No one even knows it’s happening. An excellent application of the Rules.

If you want to see an outstanding demonstration of the difference between persuasion and advocacy/activism/truthtelling, see the movie, “Thank You for Smoking.” Jason Reitman’s screenplay (based on the novel by Christopher Buckley) deftly illustrates the classic principles of persuasion in the main character, Nick Naylor, a lobbyist for the tobacco industry through contrast with virtually all the “good guy” characters, like the Senator from Vermont and various advocates in the health community.

Realize that the movie does not instruct in persuasion principles, but rather as all good movies do, simply shows those principles in action through the words and deeds of Nick Naylor, big tobacco mouthpiece. Thus, you have to think while you watch the movie and look for the tactic because no one is going to tell you when it happens.

An excellent illustration of this occurs in a scene where Nick takes a shiny aluminum briefcase stuffed with stacks of $100 bills (just like a drug purchase in a gritty movie about cocaine) to the farm of Loren Lutch, the “Marlboro Man,” who is dying, ironically, of lung cancer. The Marlboro Man, well performed by Sam Elliott, has gone public with the vast hypocrisy of his own life since it was his image on billboards and commercials selling death and now he’s dying from the product he sold with his rugged cowboy masculinity. To silence him, Big Tobacco has dispatched Nick with the money. When Lutch spots Nick with the shiny briefcase, he immediately knows it’s a payoff and he’s angry about it. Lutch is sincere about his anger and his first response is to reject the obvious blood money.

But then, Nick persuades. He tells Lutch that he should take all of it, then call a press conference. Nick then shows Lutch how to run a press conference that will absolutely kill the tobacco industry, offering the words and deeds Lutch should use for maximum effect. In brillant form, Nick shows Lutch how to artfully pour the stacks of bills out of the shiny briefcase in a cascade of shameful guilt. Lutch stands in slack jawed wonder at the power of this demonstration and the realization that his enemy, Nick, is showing him how to do this. Then, Nick hits him with the killer close. ” . . . and you announce that you are taking all of this money, all of it, every dirty dollar, to create a new foundation aimed at smoking prevention.”

Lutch ponders this a moment then asks, “All of it? I’m dying. What about my family? Can’t I keep half of it?” Nick wanly shakes his head and Lutch realizes that he can only refuse the money (leaving his family in a tough situation) or take it and remain silent (helping his family, but corrupting his outrage).

I won’t give up the outcome here - it’s a good movie worth watching.

The point, however, remains. Nick takes a moment of genuine and deeply felt outrage and finds the means of persuasion to convince an angry man to think differently. Throughout the movie, the Nick character demonstrates that in a truly free and open society where we operate in the marketplace of ideas, the person who can persuade is the more effective agent than those who think they are armed with morality, truth, or outrage.

Remember the Rules, all bad persuasion is sincere. Throughout this movie, sincere people like a Senator and health advocates are shown to be sincerely angry, outraged, and filled to the brim with science and truth, yet they appear foolish, ineffectual, and charmless. You don’t bring a knife to a gun fight and you don’t bring sincerity to a debate.

We employ persuasion under circumstances of uncertainty, doubt, and complexity. We do not employ persuasion when the situation is clear, obvious, and simple. Sincerity has a way of making you think that things are clear when they are uncertain. It does not matter whether the Tobacco Industry is “good” or “evil.” What matters is persuasion. And, I’d ask, which is worse: An evil person who uses persuasion as a means of advancing evil or a good person who cannot use persuasion to stop evil because of sincerity? Why can’t a good person restrain sincerity and use persuasion skillfully?

Can Hollywood change the world? Really. I’m not talking about fashion, style, or trend, but real serious behavior change. Can a movie motivate action? More accurately, can movie producers use movies to motivate action? Let’s consider a recent example.

“Syriana,” the movie, released in 2005 is an excellent Hollywood example to analyze for our question. The plot addresses an issue of continuing political concern, the global politics of oil, and presents an analysis of the problem. “Syriana” determines that unscruplous oilmen, sleazy influence-peddlers, and high level CIA administrators combine to squeeze every drop of oil from Middle East countries while simultaneously seducing Arab princes into a lifestyle of excess to the detriment of the liberalization of their helpless, good-hearted people. These evil American forces prevent Middle Eastern countries from achieving liberal democracy through their greed and ambition. Finally, “Syriana” urges that these evil American forces of greed and ambition cause acts of international terrorism through the recruitment of desperate Muslims trapped in poverty.

Regardless of the creative merits of the movie (see the Internet Movie Data Base or the Movie Review Query Engine for reviews) I want to take its persuasion concepts seriously. The movie clearly identifies the structural factors that drive this enormously important political issue. The three primary factors are oil companies, lobbyists, and CIA administrators and operatives. Syriana argues through movie techniques (rather than Madison Avenue ads or New Yorker profiles, etc.) that if good people would control the actions of these three players, the world would be a better place.

Let’s take the movie at face value and accept the argument. The Three Evil Actors are the main cause of Arab Muslim oppression and distress, significantly and actively retard the deeply desired development of liberal democracy in the Middle East, and serve to pervert the American political system. Now, let’s march on the castle with burning torches and Change Things For The Better “Syriana.”

How we do this must be pretty obvious because the movie itself provides strange guidance on the action step. “We’ve identified the cause, so the solution is easy; just get rid of the causal forces.” Hey, just fire those bad guys at the CIA. Do something about those greedy oilmen. Oh, and ban all lobbyists. And how do you do this?

If you visit the “Syriana” website you will find a link to an action website. Here they boldly offer a series of steps anyone can take to change the world for better.

Hmmm, let’s see . . . how do we reign in that out of control CIA? How about a “Virtual March” on Washington, DC? You and the producers of “Syriana” will rid the CIA of evildoers through email!

Hmmm, let’s see . . . how do we end our addiction to oil (which will hurt the sleazy oilmen in the wallet)? Just download this spiffy PDF which contains fabulous Action Steps you can take all by yourself with no help from “Syriana.” Consider these dazzlingly actions: Weatherize your house! Share car rides! Combine several short car trips into one longer trip! Use energy efficient appliances!

Can “Syriana” be any more lazy and irresponsible? Share a ride. Put weather strips around your windows. This is going to seriously address the serious problem “Syriana” observes?

Let’s do some math on this to evaluate movie’s commitment to influence with responsibility. If you Google around for movie financial information you’ll find it cost about $50 million to create the movie (production and marketing costs). To date (January 1, 2007)”Syriana” has grossed just under $100 million. The movie received awards. It got lots of buzz in the big media sources for its intellectual content. It’s obvious they made some money on this one. And if they spent more than $1,000 putting up their Participate website, I should open a business providing useless, but attractive websites to Hollywood unElectables.

So, the producers pony up $50 million to change the world about oil. That’s a pretty serious number. Except they got all of that back, plus some extra. They will keep that extra amount. Except for the $1,000 they spent on the Participate website with all that groovy information about weatherizing, car pooling, and energy efficient appliances. And that website will help “Syriana” change the world.

What’s even more amazing about this is that it appears that everyone involved is serious about this. I watched a PBS episode (12/21/05) of “Charlie Rose” with several movie critics discussing “Syriana” as if it were a piece of serious political rhetoric. Read some of the comments “Syriana” viewers offer on the Participate.net website. They believe what they are saying. They are sincere.

When you stop and think about what this movie claims, you realize how lazy these influence agents are. They believe that they can use a popular entertainment to drive people to a website that recycles ideas that have been around since the year after Henry Ford invented the Model T and that this will influence large number of people to modify their own energy use and cause significant change to the operation of a government agency.

Using these influence tactics even George Clooney couldn’t get elected to the school board although they did help him and his investors earn a profit of $50 million for his creative efforts.

Now, of course, it is possible that Clooney et al. are operating on a different persuasion target. Instead of using “Syriana” to change the world, they were using “Syriana” to make people believe they were trying to change the world in the hopes that this perception would generate more sales. Hmmmm.

All bad persuasion is sincere.

The action website reeks of sincerity. Everyone wears their hearts on their sleeves and now a year after the release of the movie and the action website, it is obvious that it had no impact on oil policy or prices or the CIA or Middle Eastern princes and pirates.

One of the Rules is: Persuaders can be famous or effective, but not both.

To the extent that Clooney et al. are famous as persuaders, they are ineffective at behavior change (that lame website). To the extent that Clooney et al. are effective as persuaders, they would be infamous for getting rich in such a way.