Does "negative marketing" work? 🧲

Hello Reader,

I've been thinking a lot on a question I answered awhile back. Someone asked me, I think it was in the Instagram DMs, if I think "negative marketing" works.

Now, by this they meant that kind of marketing that's centered around what you're not. We see this a fair bit in online-first business spaces where folks spend a lot of time on messaging that's essentially, "These people are bad, but I'm the opposite."

This is different from the Movement Marketing ethos which is solution oriented, yet still requires some rallying around a common problem. (I discuss this further in this blog post.)

My short answer is, "Yes, this kind of negative marketing works—for awhile."

Here's the problem with build your entire message around what you're not: People still never know what you stand for—just what you're against.

Furthermore, you're actually allowing your brand to be defined by others. This is inherent in this kind of messaging. It's effectively reactionary brand building.

An example: If you're an attorney and you believe that the way big law firms handle their small business clients (hourly billing, passing them over to the most junior staff, etc) is the wrong way, the negative marketing approach would say that you should build your message around how these firms suck. It would probably work—for awhile—as it's a bold, attention-getting brand position.

But this is also likely to burn out your audience, and still leave them wondering what your actually do and how it can help them.

A better option in this scenario would be to:

1. Talk about the problem (small business clients are underserved, billing is confusing, etc);
2. Propose a better way (flat fee billing, a dedicated attorney that knows your business)
3. Center the CLIENT not the industry.

Which brings me to the other big problem with this model of marketing: Negative marketing requires your audience have industry knowledge.

This is the other big risk of this type of messaging.

Your clients likely know far, far less about your industry than you think they do. In our lawyer example, the potential client may know that a lot of lawyers bill hourly and that can lead to surprisingly high bills, but that's probably the limit of their knowledge.

Which means folks are, frankly, left confused about what on earth you're talking about. "What, associate attorney, what's that," may be their response, sending them into even more stress about hiring an attorney. After all, if they don't know what an associate is, what else don't they know? So, using that exclusively negative marketing, we've created more anxiety.

Am I saying don't point out problems? Absolutely not.

Am I advocating for toxic positivity? Oh, no way.

What I'm suggesting is that you think twice before building your message in an unsustainable way that actually ignores your own value.

Talk soon,

Sarah