The Persuaders

The three-stage technique used by Dr. Rapaille consisted of moving past reason and through emotion to get to the primal core. Dr. Rapaille fit many of the stereotypes of psychologists but his message and impressive list of customers speak for themselves.

Past Reason
In the first step of breaking the code Dr. Rapaille introduces a focus group to a topic and listens to their input. The initial step involves a traditional focus group and a circle of chairs. Participants in the group are encouraged to say how they feel about a topic, such as luxury, and begin to feel more comfortable with the study. Most of the comments made deal with reason in the cortex and are not extremely important in the study; the purpose is to move past the first two steps to get to the primal core.

Through Emotion
Dr. Rapaille stated that participants in a focus group want to show how intelligent they are and this presents a barrier; in order to get past this barrier he gets the members to tell a story about the topic as if the audience was a five-year-old from another planet. The Persuaders did not show much of this step but it could be seen that the focus group was surprised and confused but played along. By having the members tell a story in the simplest form it removed many of the emotions and brought members to the basics of the topic.

To the Primal Core
To begin the third and most important phase of the focus group Dr. Rapialle removed all of the chairs from the room and replaced them with pillows; focus group participants were then encouraged to relax on the pillows with the lights off and think about the first time they experienced the topic or product. After a period the lights were turned on and participants would write about their first experience, which could take them back thirty years and excite the memories they experienced. This brought participants to the primal core and was the main goal of Dr. Rapialle’s study.

One idea that interested me in the reptilian code was the idea that the first time a new product or idea is experienced we imbed and define the product or experience from that first time. This seems intuitive but when I think of coffee I think of my morning routine, not the first time I saw my dad drinking it in the morning. I can see, though, how relaxing and thinking of the first time I experienced the product how the thought of my dad would come to mind. In The Persuaders Dr. Rapialle used the illustration of thinking of mothers when coffee came to mind. I thought it was interesting that we build and build on a first experience of a product, but can still remember the primal core of the product.

I thought the idea of Song airlines was a bit too idealistic and the marketers were a little out of touch with reality. They used and wanted customers to use buzzwords like “that’s song” instead of “that’s cool” to describe their experiences with Song. The marketers also focused only on a specific target market of women during the show; this could be the only part the editors chose to show but if this was the only group they targeted, like in the commercial, they are missing out on many customers. They never addressed business travel and every time I have flown the people in the plane were very diverse, not at all like the upscale, trendy woman the marketers were targeting. I get the image in my head of walking into one of Song’s airplanes and seeing it just completely full of the women they are targeting and it just seems ridiculous to me. With a budget of $12M Song was facing an uphill battle against other giants such as JetBlue and Southwest.