August 1, 2012

rBST. What the <bleep> is that?

While eating my yogurt this morning, I was puzzled by the packaging claim “Milk from cows not treated with rBST.” What? Apparently the copywriter who wrote this for Trader Joe’s Greek Apricot Mango Yogurt forgot a couple of key marketing rules, the first of which is don’t use jargon. How many consumers know rBST? Not me. So I went on a Google search. Come to find out (thank you, Wikipedia): Bovine somatotropin (BST) is a hormone produced by a cow's pituitary gland to regulate metabolic processes. Since 1994, it has been possible to synthesize the hormone and create recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST) or artificial growth hormone. Interesting, but so what? Trader Joe's had me at Greek Apricot Mango Yogurt (yum). Why should/would the absence of rBST influence my purchase of the yogurt?

Second forgotten marketing rule: Sell the benefits of a product or service, not the features. Most people could care less about your products or services. They want to know what the product or service can do for them; how it will solve some problem or help them achieve some business or personal objective. Too often copywriters concentrate on the great features offered, but neglect to translate them into the real motives for buying. So what is the benefit of a rBST-free yogurt? Simply: Health of the animals. And how will the health of the cows solve some problem or help me achieve some business or personal objective? Since I'm a caring human being, not harming animals is a personal objective. To (hopefully) drive home my point, wouldn’t you be more excited to purchase the yogurt if the package labeling stated that no animals were harmed in the making of the yogurt, rather than if you read milk from the cows was not treated with rBST? I rest my case, except to say that actually it’s not the milk that is treated with rBST. In truth, the cow is injected with the hormone so it will produce milk for a longer period of time. But truth in advertising is a subject for another day.

Today I’m creating an ad for a quarterly publication. I took into consideration the marketing rules discussed above. It just wouldn’t be prudent of me to criticize a peer for not following the rules if I did’t follow them myself.