Hey what’s up Thinkers! Kathy Gibbens here…
Let’s start off today with a quick review of a fallacy we covered earlier this season, The Furtive Fallacy. Do you want to pause for a quick minute and see if you can remember what the Furtive Fallacy is? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines ‘furtive’ as: doing something in a quiet and secretive way to avoid being noticed. It has connotations of being clandestine, conspiratorial and covert. So, the Furtive Fallacy happens when people conclude that outcomes are the result of the secret, ill intentions or wrong-doings of the decision makers involved.
Question to ask yourself if you think you’re hearing or even committing the Furtive Fallacy is this: “Is there any proof that that person had bad intent & deliberately made decisions that would harm or deceive people?’
While it may sound like a conspiracy theory, there’s actually a difference, so definitely check out the episode where I talk about the Furtive Fallacy.
If you want to hear more about this fallacy, check out Episode 77
Today we’ll be talking about another Compliance Strategy, which is something that someone does purposefully to get the other person to do what they want them to do. So, the Pique Technique, which by the way is spelled p-i-q-u-e, is making your offer or invitation particularly interesting by making an unusual request. This may make more sense when you learn that the word pique means “to excite or arouse”, and in this use of the word, it means to excite or arouse curiosity. So the pique technique is doing something to make people curious and interested, and it’s particularly designed to get people to behave in a specific way in situations where people aren’t typically paying a lot of attention to the request or in situations where people often reject the request. And when I say curious, sometimes it’s a conscious curiosity and sometimes it’s an unconscious or psychological curiosity. Let me explain.
Often, in marketing & sales, you’ll see sales amounts that end in odd numbers. It’s very common to see $9.99 or $99.99. Why would you charge $9.99 instead of $10? Arguably, $10 is so much easier, more common and a nice round number! Why not use that? Because it’s psychologically ‘boring’ to our brains. But if you make it an odd number, your brain pays more attention to it b/c it’s different, it stands out. If you pay attention to online sellers, they’ll often end their pricing using the number 7. $9.97 is even more interesting to our brains than $9.99! Interesting, huh?
This technique can even work when people are just flat-out asking for money. For instance, there’s a 1994 study which found that a panhandler asking pedestrians for money had the most success when utilizing the pique technique. In the control conditions, when they asked “Can you spare any change?” 44% donated. When they asked “Can you spare a quarter?” the donation rate increased to 64%. But, when they asked “Can you spare 17 cents?” or “Can you spare 37 cents?” about 75% donated. Again, we see that making an unusual request sort of wakes up the brain and makes us more alert, aware & interested in the request being made.
Study source: https://www.business2community.com/non-profit-marketing/pique-technique-can-enhance-fundraising-ask-strings-01909445#:~:text=Put%20simply%2C%20the%20pique%20technique,donation%2C%20invitation%2C%20etc.)
While the Pique Technique may be a good marketing strategy, we need to be aware of it b/c it could cause us to buy something we really don’t need just b/c it got our attention and made us curious. Isn’t it fascinating how easily our brain can be hijacked if we’re not aware?
Another example of the Pique Technique is when organizations are looking for donations. Oftentimes, they’ll send out a card or a website with a list of different donation amounts that people can make. Sometimes you’ll see $5, $10, $25, $50, but some organizations are getting wise to the Pique Technique and they’re taking a different approach. Say it’s a dog shelter. Maybe they’ll do something like this: “Give $7 to feed a dog for a week, $29 to feed a dog for a month or $117 to help Rover find his forever home!” Can you see how giving unusual dollar amounts and attaching an ‘interesting’ explanation of what the money will be used for captures your attention more than just 5, 10, 25 or 50 dollars?
So, the Question to ask yourself when you’re faced with the Pique Technique is this: “Is this really something I want to spend my money on?” *repeat*
Remember: When you learn HOW to think, you will no longer fall prey to those who are trying to tell you what THEY want you to think and it all starts with asking one simple question: “Is that really true?”
