If you want to persuade jurors, you must be clear, right? Maybe not. New research shows that a sales pitch is more persuasive when it confuses the customer.
At least at first. If you confuse them and stop there, they're just confused. But if you confuse listeners and then resolve their confusion, scholars who study the "disrupt-then-reframe" technique contend, you'll persuade them more often than you would have if you had been clear from the start.
The latest paper on this topic was announced in a press release yesterday. It's called "The Role of the Need for Cognitive Closure in the Effectiveness of the Disrupt-the-Reframe Influence Technique," by Frank R. Kardes, Bob M. Fennis and three co-authors, and it's being published in the October issue of the Journal of Consumer Research. The article is subscription only, but the press release gets it across.
300 pennies
"Disrupt-then-reframe" -- DTR for short -- is what you do to your listener's understanding when you use what the authors call this "relatively new technique." "In the seminal investigation of the DTR effect," the authors explain, scholars in 1999
used a subtle disruption in which the price of a product was indicated in pennies: “The price of these note cards is 300 pennies.” This disruption was followed by the reframing: “That’s $3. It’s a bargain.”
That moment of confusion, immediately explained, doesn't sound like much. But it made a big difference. In that 1999 study, people who got the price in confusing pennies and then clear dollars agreed to buy 65-90% of the time, while those who got only the confusing or only the clear explanation bought only 25-50% of the time. "The DTR technique has been shown to increase sales of Christmas cards, note cards, and cookies in door-to- door sales campaigns for various nonprofit organizations . . . and also to increase sales of lottery tickets and to increase students’ acceptance of a tuition increase," the authors tell us.
The "need for cognitive closure"
Why does the technique work? "Disruption has been thought to reduce counterarguing and to increase susceptibility to the reframing or rewording of the message," the authors explain, and the new study explores this area. The confusing message creates a "need for cognitive closure," as the authors call it -- a need for answers. In these experiments, subjects were measured not only for their reactions to the sales pitches, but also for how much they were just the kind of people who needed cognitive closure in life. Not surprisingly, the results suggested that the more uncomfortable you are with uncertainty, the more strongly you respond to the disrupt-then-reframe technique.
Joining the confusing club
This theory probably contradicts most of what you've been taught about trial presentation. But when you think about it, it makes sense. People want to solve mysteries. "Survivor" and "American Idol" wouldn't have lasted a year if the first episodes told us who survived and who won. If you watch even for a few hours, you'll see that the world is full of people who get your attention by momentarily confusing you -- advertisers, headline writers (I tried it in the headline of this post), screenwriters, joke writers, your children.
Everyone, it seems, except trial lawyers. We keep plodding along -- clear as a bell, if we're lucky and good, but dull as dirt. Maybe we need a little confusion, well timed and quickly resolved.
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Note: Guy Kawasaki, the marketing giant who shares my birthday, wrote about this paper today from the marketing point of view.
(Image by Tall Chris at http://www.flickr.com/photos/tallchris/14288097/; license details there.)
