The “Anti-Selling Loophole ❌”: When ‘No’ Means ‘Yes’ in Marketing

Is this the dumbest ad ever??

The picture above is from Patagonia’s 2011 Black Friday Marketing campaign.

On the biggest, most profitable shopping day of the year, the company instructed potential customers not to buy their jackets.

Surely, the head of marketing was tossed from a tenth-story window for this “stupid idea.”...

Except the idea wasn’t stupid at all…

This “anti-marketing campaign” is one of the most successful ad campaigns in the 21st century.

It’s responsible for making Patagonia one of the largest clothing brands in the world… 

And helping them sell millions of jackets… talk about irony!

Let’s unpack this…

In 2011, the Patagonia marketing team faced the problem that almost all companies have on Black Friday.

How to stand out when literally every business in the world is having a sale?

Another lame-o 20% off promo or boring free shipping offer would not help them beat their bigger competitors. 

So Patagonia did the exact opposite of what everyone else was doing and released this ad:

While every brand on planet Earth was yelling Buy! Buy! Buy!

Patagonia told the market, “Don’t Buy This Jacket”...

And instead support their charity called the “Common Threads Initiative”.

Not only did this ad rack up a ton of donations for their charity, it led to millions of jacket sales. 

It exploited a loophole psychologists call “the salience bias.”

This is a fancy way of saying people pay more attention to things that stand out or go against a pattern.

For a visual example, look at the pic below:

Which arrow sticks out to you?

Obviously, the yellow one pointing up.

You can think of all the other Black Friday campaigns as the pink arrows in the picture.

Patagonia beat their bigger competition by being the yellow arrow pointing in the opposite direction.

It also helped that they promoted their charity and positioned themselves as a “goody two shoes” brand that cared about the environment. 

The moral of the story…

Selling, especially in competitive markets, means boldly standing out. 

Sometimes, the best way to do this is to do the opposite of everyone else. 

When they zig, you zag.

Have you used “the salience effect” in your marketing?

Happy marketing,

Evelio