In the relational world (human or business) too much perfection already “stinks”. Historically, Marketing has been accused of exaggerating the perfect side of things and even of kuwait phone number library manipulation. Like everything, “there is everything” and it is a mistake to generalize these practices because the more relational concept of Marketing can help people and companies a lot to find what they need, if it is done in an ethical way and above all… natural.
Being natural means showing yourself as you are, with your virtues and defects. Deep down, we are all human brands, that is, we all generate meanings or perceptions in the person in front of us, more or less credible, but we generate them. Just like companies.
Companies, as relational entities (made up of people) that they are, must show their personality by humanizing their brand to the maximum, pointing out that a human brand is neither a logo nor advertising, nor just images of smiling people, but rather the whole set of relationships and meanings that the company generates (people, social networks, fairs, opinions of others, product design, etc.). But... why is the sincere humanization of a brand so necessary today?
Why it is very difficult to try to appear perfect in the era of digital overexposure. Almost everything can be found and consumers are empowered and demand much more from brands today, especially in terms of "form", responsibility and impact. We have generated a know-how of searching and finding out the truth from the mouths of others and it is very difficult to convince ourselves of that which has not been able to be validated in various fields. Also because we want belonging and relationships (especially in b2b and Industrial) more than one-off operations, so wanting to appear perfect in an ongoing relationship is neither valid nor valuable.
Likewise, because people seek reliability and that reliability must be credible. This is achieved by being honest and admitting where we fall short and even imperfections and mistakes because, after all, what human being doesn't make mistakes? In what long-term relationship is there no room for imperfections? It is understandable, at the very least. Imperfections (just like in people) can make brands more attractive and that is what the Pratfall effect is all about.
Psychologist Elliot Aronson discovered the Pratfall bias in 1966 and defined it as an increase or decrease in an individual's interpersonal attractiveness after he or she makes a mistake.
In the world of marketing, we have seen communication campaigns by low-cost airlines (at their launch) where they openly talked about the fact that reservations could not be made and that luggage would have to be paid for in exchange for a lower price. We have also seen claims such as that of Guinness “good things come to those who wait” and even business models where some telephone companies whose strategy was to differentiate themselves by resolving incidents, went so far as to cause them in a controlled manner.
