Red Saber Tactics
Sometimes in marketing tactics that could be considered ethically questionable that create return on investment. Some marketers slowly grow their brands the right way: serving customers, filling needs and informing and not annoying. But there is no doubt that this is a long process, and some marketers get… impatient. Yoda might say “impatience leads to anger, anger leads to temptation, and temptation leads to… the dark side.” Some marketers hand over their blue or green lightsaber for a red lightsaber and join the dark side.
‘Red saber tactics’ is a term from the guys at Marketing Over Coffee podcast. It is a good term for those ethically questionable tactics. There are a lot of them:
- email spam
- junk mail
- sex in advertising
- booth babes
- give aways
- fine print
- extra fine print
- selling contact information
- pop up internet adds
- spyware
- hiring attractive sales people
- gifts to make customers feel obligated
- adware
- fake testimonials
- locked down hardware
- withholding key information
- exaggerated demonstrations
- false promises
- addictive products
- advertising sale prices as regular prices
- drug dealer model (first taste is free)
- extravagant overage charges
- lock in contracts
- pressure sales tactics
- lying by omission
- preying on vulnerable customers
- unadvertised fees and charges
- monopoly
- oligopoly
- playing up fears
And on and on and on. These can give you a jump in sales, leads, hits, or whatever your primary metric is. But it comes at the expense of the robustness of your brand. As fast as the numbers rise, they can fall. I equate it to using a credit card; you are spending future money in exchange for a steep rate. You and I both know companies built on red saber tactics are in trouble in these “tough economic times.”
A brand built on blue or green saber tactics may grow slow, but can survive adversity.
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By Colin Finkle. Colin Finkle is an award winning industrial designer that works with large brands everyday designing displays for FX Displays in Toronto, Canada. He is the principle designer at Firebrand Creative. He also writes for AMD’s FireUser.com blog.
Please comment!
December 20th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Red saber doesn’t directly equate to ethically questionable, although both morals and ethics tend to come up when reviewing them. The real challenge is these are not just shades of gray, but the entire rainbow of color.
Sex in ads is a cornerstone of the fashion industry. Monopolies sometimes produce better markets than competition.
Blue or green tactics are always right in the long term, but many companies have been outmaneuvered by others not afraid to use the Red saber when it’s called for. In some markets that choice means life or death for the company.
December 20th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Thanks for commenting John. For those who don’t know, John Wall is one of the host of Marketing Over Coffee, one of my favourite podcasts.
I agree, there are some times when a normally questionable tactic is just standard operating procedure. You can’t be in the lingerie business without selling with sex. You can’t be in the insurance business without dealing with fears.
But call me an idealist, but I think red saber tactics should be avoided in all but the most desperate situations. But obviously companies don’t always have the operating capital to survive while holding our green and blue lightsabers proudly while the red sabers steal numbers.
December 22nd, 2008 at 12:38 pm
[...] Last post I talked about ‘red saber tactics.’ Red saber tactics is a Star Wars reference by the guys at Marketing Over Coffee. They are tactics that could be considered questionable. While they can create short term rises in numbers, they come at the cost of the brand’s future. Red saber tactics are on a wide spectrum between benign and pure evil, and where each tactic lies on the spectrum depends on many variables. For example, using a bikini model to sell insurance is a little different than using a model to sell lingerie. But people know the spectrum by feeling what is in their heart. [...]
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June 24th, 2010 at 8:53 am
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