Comments on: Poland Spring Case Study: How to Craft Persuasive Messages

By: Will

Will — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 12:18:00 +0000

I agree that the bottle’s message was not persuasive and preferred your take on the slogan. To play devil’s advocate, it is possible they chose to focus on sugar instead of calories because an average consumer would think, “By drinking 0-calorie soda I can lose 16 pounds a year and be healthy!” I’m curious how you would craft a message that touts the benefits of water against both regular and diet sodas.

By: Missy

Missy — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 06:09:36 +0000

Well, your blog certainly does contain articles with catchy headlines. However, the articles themselves are well written gems of substance and meaningful information. In other words, I have become so tired of those “Other” blog articles that hide behind deceivingly glamorous (And knowledgeable) titles only to disappoint with generic, trite, useless dribble that everyone has read before. Thank you for your blog articles, you seem credible, and your my new favorite:)

Regards,
-Missy

By: phae

phae — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:00:42 +0000

derek, you sounded smart until you said cutting out 1 can of soda a day would make you lose 16 pounds. readers would think poland spring went crazy! instead, they were smart and played into people’s fear of sugar. 3650 tsp is a big numer that no one understands enough yet it screams, STAY AWAY FROM SUGAR! exactly the message they were trying to relate. it worked! plus we are all on here talking about it, proving that it is smart marketing

By: Alexwebmaster

Alexwebmaster — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 11:39:46 +0000

great stuff.

By: Rat Race Trap

Rat Race Trap — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 23:42:55 +0000

Great post! I started reading Made to Stick and then got distracted and forgot about it. Your post reminded me and now I’m going to go back and read it through this time.

By: Very Evolved

Very Evolved — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 22:48:54 +0000

The human brain operates in a very visual way. You may think you can comprehend numbers, but they are an abstract concept that gets processed by the frontal cortex after passing through the visual system.

I would ditch the numbers all together and go for a purely visual medium – just show a pile of sugar cubes next to the bottle and ask a single question: Do you really want this?

Patrick

By: Derek

Derek — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 22:19:34 +0000

@Anthony What do you mean by taint?

By: Derek

Derek — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 09:46:00 +0000

@Trey While I think you may be right about people using Math, it still doesn’t make you feel like “oh, wow, what a surprise.” With the 3,500 calorie comment, at least most people will say “I never knew that..”

By: Anthony Coffee

Anthony Coffee — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 09:03:18 +0000

Poland Spring is the best for you bottled water. I find it very strange that their slogan would be so taint.

By: Trey Baird

Trey Baird — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 05:53:25 +0000

I agree with everything that you mentioned except for one thing.

Most people don’t bother to use math. The literally have to have things spelled out for them. Your revised pitch, however, still spelled it out, so that was good. I just wouldn’t complain about insulting the viewer’s math. That’s one of the annoyances of having a functioning brain… you have to wait for everyone to catch up to you.