Ever heard of the story of the Wizard of Oz, how four people were on a quest to get to the wizard of Oz because they had issues they believed he would help them to achieve, one was the lion who wanted courage, Dorothy wanted her way back, the scarecrow wanted a brain while the tinman wanted a heart.
Funny enough the wizard of Oz couldn’t really help them but gave them a placebo, something that would make them feel like they got the solution and this miraculously solved their problem because the lion felt courageous, the tin man was given a heart shaped stuff and he felt he could love while the scarecrow was given straws for brains.
Most people would say it’s the reason why people take holy communion while they are sick and get healing, but the placebo isn’t necessarily a medical term but what really is a placebo
The placebo effect is when a person’s physical or mental health appears to improve after taking a placebo or ‘dummy’ treatment. Placebo is Latin for ‘I will please’ and refers to a treatment that appears real but is designed to have no therapeutic benefit
If a patient gets a tension headache and their trusted doctor gives them medicine that they feel confident will treat it, the relief they expect is likely to decrease their stress. And since stress is a trigger for tension headaches, the magic of the placebo response is not so mysterious anymore.
The placebo effect has a large root in a person’s expectations. If you have prior expectations for something, they can influence your perception of it. Therefore, if you expect a pill to make you feel better, you may feel better after taking it.
But this means something else for those into marketing, placebo is a story we tell ourselves that change the way our brain and our body work. A placebo makes wine taste better, cancer drugs more effective and education significantly more efficient and effective. Any time a story or ritual changes the way we encounter something, we’ve experienced the placebo effect.
There used to be this belief that old wine taste better, or wine taste better depending on the wine glass used, same way it was believed that a particular drink tastes better than another, when in reality this might not be true but a perception that the brand might have been saying, a placebo effect.
Most entrepreneus engage in communicating not just the obvious features of their product or service, but work to create an emotional process around the use of the thing. If it’s a charity, make the act of donating more than writing a check. If it’s a kind of sporting good, focus on more than just the carbon fiber structure.
A placebo isn’t just a medical intervention. It’s any tool we use to feel better in a complicated world. They don’t just make us feel better, sometimes they actually change our physiology and can make us better.
Again we are not saying that marketers should lie about what they do so that they can place a placebo effect but you can give people an expectation of what to expect when they patronize your goods or services and miraculously they see it happen.
Most brands have taken advantage of this and many more will, so why haven’t you explored this yet?
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