To sell something new, make it familiar. To sell something familiar, make it new.
When Disney decided to enter the cruise industry with the launch of its own ship – Disney Magic – they faced a big challenge:
Cruise ships had a perception problem.
In 1998, most families saw them as floating retirement homes.
Or party boats for college students on Spring Break.
And neither one screamed “magical family vacation.”
Which was an issue for Disney, because their core customer is families.
So they did something brilliant:
Instead of trying to convince families to try a cruise vacation – something totally new to themā¦
Disney reframed their ships as “floating theme parksā something their buyers were already familiar with.
They painted the familiar Mickey Mouse ears on the ship…
Ships featured characters āpaintingā the stern.Ā
The horn plays “When You Wish Upon a Star” from the movie Pinocchio.
And familiar characters like Mickey and Minnie Mouse roam the decks.
This strategy was a huge success because of how it balanced the tension between two marketing psychology principles:
- š¤ Neophilia: Our curiosity about new things
- Ā šØ Neophobia: Our fear of new things
I noticed these principles when I was doing some customer experience work with a big global brand a few years ago.
There was a consultancy trying to sell the brand on virtual reality staff training.
But they were struggling.
The company was big, risk-averse, and hesitant to work with technology that was new and unproven (at least to them).
Asked to sit in on the VR consultancies pitch meeting, I was excited but the brand wanāt convinced.
So after the meeting, I grabbed a member of the VR team (who I knew from another project) and suggested that a quick reframe of virtual reality to make it feel more familiar could solve their issue:
Instead of their current pitch, which focused on how new, groundbreaking, and innovative their VR approach wasā¦
I suggested they reframe it as a new format of the brandās existing app-based trainingā¦
An evolution, not a revolution.
This new approach worked because our brains are wired to seek out, trust, and choose familiar things.
Thereās even a psychological principle – Familiarity Bias – that spells this out.
When we already know and understand something, itās more persuasive and engaging.
While trying something totally new is a big risk.
And risks freaks people out – consciously or not.
How you do this canāt be copy/pasted from another business.
Itās context dependent – your industry, brand, market, buyers, and offer/products all play a part in how you balance novelty and familiarity.
It’s why Netflix described itself as “DVD rental by mail” when it launched.Image from the Netflix website January 18, 2008
Why Lyft launched its rideshare service as “your friend with a car.”Image from the Lyft website September 17, 2012
And why Apple presented the first iPhone as “an iPod + a phone + an internet browser.”
They all made the new feel familiar, while making the familiar feel new.