Sen Ze’s Business In Your Pajamas! Blog

In the early 1990s, the “60 Minutes” program on American TV reported that silver fillings for teeth, which contain mercury, was poisoning the human body.

This caused a panic and resulted in scores of people going to their dentist to replace their silver fillings with something safer.

* Ka-ching *

One woman actually spent $18,000 to replace all her fillings with some alternative that was less durable.

Which also meant more frequent visits to the dentist to replace the safer alternative in due time.

* Ka-ching *

Imagine how much the dental industry gained from just this one report.

It turned out that the scare was ill-founded.

Mercury in silver fillings was not endangering the human body at all.

It is safer than ever to use silver fillings.

And did I mention it’s cheaper and lasts longer too?

“60 Minutes” was irresponsible in airing that report despite there being no strong evidence that it was true.

It’s like saying water will make you burst into flames, simply because it’s made up of oxygen and hydrogen.

(Hydrogen is an explosive gas and oxygen supports combustion.)

The dental industry probably have nothing to do with that report, but “Fear Marketing” is being used everyday today to increase sales – legitimately.

Here are some examples:

“This Will Expire On…..”

Bottled water have expiry dates. Bullets, too.

They expire. And when they expire, they’re dangerous (bullets may explode when fired, injuring the user).

And I don’t know what expired water will do to you.

Anyway, you need to buy new ones to be safe, after they’ve expired.

* Ka-ching *

This isn’t to say there’s no such thing as an expiry date for anything.

Of course there is. But an expiry date speeds up the replacement activity – and so some marketers will do well thinking of this possibility for their products and then drawing attention to it.

“Limited Edition”

There are only 50 units of this car model made in the world.

Buy this Limited Edition model at $1.5 million only or lose the chance to join the elite.

* Ka-ching *

There are only 200 units of this cute doll that can be purchased every day in each of our burger outlets, for the next 30 days. Each day will showcase a different doll, and you can’t buy yesterday’s doll, no matter how much you beg.

Stand in line to get the entire series now. Can you imagine how much they’ll sell on e-bay? (Actually, we don’t know.)

* Ka-ching *

“It’s Less Painful”

Babies born by Caesarian operations increased dramatically when quite a number of doctors marketed it aggressively as an alternative to painful childbirth rather than when there are complications for either the mother or the baby.

A C-Section costs double and the wound takes some time to heal. There are also other additional risks in this procedure for the woman and child, including the risk of General Anesthesia.

But because of women’s fear of pain that is magnified further by suggestions (brilliant acting in movies, articles in women’s magazines, friends who have experienced painful labor, and maybe the doctor’s receptionist) and the doctor’s need to not wait for babies to show up whenever they feel like it (and as a consequence, the doctor being on call all the time) – C-sections are now more popular than ever.

The media and the environment surrounding an expectant mother have done the marketing of this message very well.

All that is required for the fear to take over is the simple question:

“Would you prefer a C-section?”

* Ka-ching *

The truth is every woman is different and doesn’t experience pain the same way. Some who have delivered their babies naturally said that it say it wasn’t a comfortable experience, but it wasn’t as painful as they had expected.

Others say it was the worst pain imaginable.

But it is now possible to not feel any pain at all without having a C-Section. My wife had an half-epidural procedure to block the pain (only her lower back was numbed) and our son was born naturally.

She was fully conscious and didn’t feel any pain during the delivery. I was there with her at that astonishing moment in time. (Childbirth is truly an amazing experience for both the mother and father. I recommend it highly. And please get your video camera ready.)

There’s also C-Section done via epidural nowadays – in that the woman’s abdomen is cut with her being fully conscious, for the baby to be delivered.

* Double ka-ching? *

Sen Ze

P.S. You can link to this post with the following URL:

http://senze.com/business-blog/business-marketing/fear-marketing.htm

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