Social Engineering Blogs

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Practical Persuasion

The more you know about Persuasion the more you see it.  I have seen a couple of advertisements recently on television.  Some good, some could be improved.  So here is you test.  I have put a couple of videos into the post and see if you can see what is good and what would be done to improve them.

OPSM Ultra Wide Digital Retinal Scan

Below is the OPSM advertisement for their Ulta Wide Digital Retinal Scan.  I like the use of CONTRAST but I think something could be done to improve the persuasive of the advertisement.

HINT: It has to do with the order and the use of SCARCITY.

ANSWER: Instead of starting with what competitors do and show how much more the Retinal Scan offers, what do you think the impact would have been if they had started with the wider scan and then retracted to show how much their competitors are missing?  It is a small thing but one I think would have been very impactful.

ADF Recruitment Ad

Tell me what two principles the ADF are using in this advertisement.  One obvious and one not so obvious.

Answer: Obviously the first is Consensus showing you what many other Australians are doing by joining up.  The second is that of Consistency, tapping into people’s identity and labeling setting to show if you are this type of person then the ADF is for you.  Subtle and sophisticated but if you are that type of person, very effective.

Audi – What Defines Us

Finally Audi – they are diving deep into Liking as you can see yourself as the teenager.  Consistency because of the things we stand for.  Scarcity because of the things we have lost, regrets we have, things we could lose in the future.  Finally Contrast – well because not many car makers have taken this route before saying that what you do defines you – of course it does – but in this case drive an Audi and remove all the regrets you ever had a kid – why?  Because you can!

Very clever.

Type your ideas in the comments box below.  I will provide my comments on Thursday.

The post Practical Persuasion appeared first on Social Influence Consulting Group.

Holden’s Bungle – Brand Smash

Just before Christmas 2013, iconic Australian motoring brand Holden announced that as of 2017 it would stop making cars in Australia.   While possibly a sound business decision due to falling sales and overall profitability the execution of the announcement and the subsequent advertising campaign was Holden’s Bungle!

The history of Holden dates back to 1856 when it started as a saddlery business in South Australia before it moved into the automotive industry in 1908.  In 1931 Holden became a subsidiary of the United States-based General Motors (GM) but the brand has colloquially been known and recognised as Australian.

The Holden departure from Australia wasn’t the first time GM has made an announcement regarding one of their brands that would ultimately trigger loss.  In 2000 GM announced in the United States that they would cease making the Oldsmobile.  As we know the Principle of Scarcity says that things become more valuable when they are less available and this was certainly the case with the Oldsmobile as it broke its own sales records after the announcement – “people had to have one before they were gone”.

In Holden’s case however the brand is not being discontinued like the Oldsmobile.  Instead it is just not being made in Australia any longer.  So the loss is not of the brand itself rather the jobs and the fact the car is no longer being made here.

Holden’s Bungle – “We’re here to stay”

Holden knew the announcement would not be popular so they followed the it with the  “We’re here to stay” advertising campaign that ran for two weeks after the announcement on television, radio and in print.

As a public and active commitment goes many people immediately questioned this statement with a simple response of

“No you’re not!”

Rather than allay the fears of the general public, Holden’s Facebook page received over 1500 comments about the announcement – many negative as did the above video on YouTube.

Some of the unhappy comments included:

Not only did somebody come up with this, it made it through all points of approval and sign off at GM. – the most inappropriate, fake and insulting commercial I’ve ever seen. We all know what has happened. Rubbing salt into the wound by saying you are here to stay, as you just announced you are moving production overseas is a kick in the guts Holden/GM. You had already damaged your brand, this just killed it. Perfect example of the ultimate marketing failure. Will never buy your product again after this. Deplorable.  Bailey Collins

“I had bought 4 new Holden’s and the last 13 years and 1 second  hand VZ SS ute  because it had more grunt then the SV6 Ute I had, I also have a 2004 Monaro  and it’s a nice car but I will never buy another Holden again, also the media adds are  an insult to a person’s intelligence. Barry S

“Disgusted with you Holden. First you destroy families and lives here crying poor and then you spend mega bucks on a radio / advertising campaign assuring us all that your still committed to Australia.” John Brown

“Please stop showing your add about how your here to stay because it’s complete BS!!! It’s not true your going and that’s it no more Australia made cars after 2017!!!!! The add is patronising so stop it because the Australian public are not dumb!!!!!!  Peter Hill

“Utterly disgusting.  I’m here to stay as well but I’m also here to tell you I’ll never buy another Holden vehicle ever again!” David Pearson

Regardless of the intent of the campaign many felt that Holden were behaving Consistently with the message they were putting out.  Even after the conclusion of the campaign Holden maintained the theme saying the ad was produced to clear up ill informed speculation about the future of the brand.

While it is a play on words,

 In the future, we may no longer make cars IN Australia, but we’ll always make cars FOR Australia, because we’re here to stay. Think Holden!

Will people think positively about Holden? Have they cost themselves their unique marketing message based on Liking (i.e. we are all from here so we are more inclined to think positively about them) or will people just not care?  From the comments of those on Social Media, NOT LIKELY!

The Principle of Consistency says that once we make a commitment we feel personal and interpersonal pressure to remain consistent with that commitment.  In this circumstance have Holden made a commitment but due to the circumstance and delivery  the commitment seems false therefore being received negatively by those they have attempted to influence?

My advice is be careful how you convey your message and remember nobody likes a smarty pants.  A play on words could be playing with fire.

 

How do you think Holden could have handled it differently?

 

 

 

The post Holden’s Bungle – Brand Smash appeared first on Social Influence Consulting Group.

Measuring Your Success: Baseline and Continual Measurement

Here you are. You’ve done your cultural assessment, you were able to identify the holes in the organizations security awareness efforts, you modified training and created a 12 month content plan to fix this. It’s time to sit back, and see some real user behavior change right?

Quick question: How do you know that your plan worked? Are users reporting more issues to the help desk? Are people more able to identify phishing emails? Are users retaining the information from annual training through the year? Basically, if your boss walked in and asked for proof that the budget was put to good use will you have anything to provide besides ‘trust me?’

Probably not and because of that you need to measure the behavior within your organization. Without measuring user behavior you have no way of knowing how successful, or unsuccessful, your security awareness architecture is. You are also left in the situation of ‘fire fighter’ in that you only know that a hole (fire) is present when that hole creates a big problem (i.e., a password attack causing a major data breech).

NoBaseline

The Value of Baseline Measurements

There are two types of measurement that are going to be pivotal in showing you significant changes in behavior: baseline and continual. Baseline measurement shows you how users were performing before any changes were made thereby providing you with a point of comparison. Lets say that you started your intervention in June and you measured user behavior through September (see ‘No Baseline graph’). Did your intervention work? To be perfectly honest, this graph shows nothing impressive at all. As a matter of fact, it looks like nothing has happened. Money well spent for sure.

Now lets add a baseline measurement and see how that looks.

Much better! Now you can clearly see that (1) help desk calls have significantly increased, and (2) the number of successful phishing attacks have significantly decreased!

Baseline

Furthermore, your new training/content plan seems to be producing long term behavior change over the following months. Great job.

This example really outlines the value of baseline measurement. Without it you really have no way of knowing if you made it better, worse, or broke even.

The Value of Continual Measurement

Once you have shown the effectiveness of your security awareness efforts, is their value in consistent measurement after? Of course. Constant measurement of user behavior allows you to see behavior trends and address issues before they become a problem. Lets go back to the help desk and phishing attack example. You continued to measure user behavior for several more months and suddenly you saw this.

ConsistentMeasurement

What happened? Not only are your users not calling the help desk but they are also falling prey to more phishing attacks. They are performing similar to before your new training and content plan was implemented. Upon further investigation you find out that a new phishing method was just released and your users are having a hard time identifying it. This also leads to less calls to the help desk.

While initially this may seem like a giant leap in the wrong direction, it is exactly what behavior measurement is for. Security threats evolve and your security awareness architecture has to evolve with it. By measuring user behavior consistently you are able to see when patterns like this occur and develop an intervention (e.g., a news letter, quick email) that addresses this before it creates a big problem for your users and you.