Healthy Influence – Persuasion Blog

For some people central route persuasion may seem to be a more honorable and honest approach to persuasion. You seek motivated receivers who want the best information before they reach a choice. You provide the strongest arguments for your case and let your opponents offer their arguments. Let the best side win.

Well, it may be more honorable, but it is not necessarily the most effective approach to persuasion. You don’t have to be a football fan to understand this when you consider an example from the National Football League.

This year the NFL conjured up a new way to make money. The owners held back a handful of late season games from the standard TV contract and created a new “NFL Network” that carries these eight Thanksgiving to Christmas games played on Thursdays and Saturdays. It’s a smart marketing move. During this time period college football is not active because the regular season is complete and most of the bowl games don’t start until Christmas. So, football junkies are down a pint for this month. Into the void steps the NFL Network with eight games to be available during the typical times when college games would air.

From a persuasion perspective I’d call this a scarcity move (when it is rare, it is good). Typically employed as a peripheral route strategy, scarcity operates on a low WATT processor who feels the pressure of the rare thing (like those home shopping channels that make a product available “only in this hour”) and without carefully looking at the merits of the thing makes a purchase. In this instance, I do not think that the NFL is using scarcity as a peripheral route tactic. Instead, the NFL is deliberately creating a scare item (football games available during a period when they are not usually available), and using that scarcity as an argument to support the consumer purchase of the product. The reasoning goes like this – “I’m a football fan and I love watching football on TV. From Thanksgiving to Christmas there is less football on TV. The NFL Network is now offering games during the dry spell. Yippee!!!” This is not a peripheral process. This is central route. The scarcity of the product is truly an argument that bears on the central merits of the purchase. In fact, this is just a nice illustration of economics and the relationship between supply and demand. When this is true, it is killer central route persuasion and the source is in line for a major gain.

So, this sounds like smart business . . . except, virtually no one is able to see the games.

See, since these games are outside of the standard TV contract, no one is contractually obligated to carry the games. Producers like NBC, ESPN, Fox, and CBS and cable operators like Time-Warner, Comcast, etc. agreed to deliver all NFL games – except these eight – as part of the contract. It looks like the NFL wanted more money for these eight games, but the usual gang of suspects didn’t want to pay the premium, so they declined the offer. The NFL is stuck with having these eight games, but can’t get them out to the public. Now, the NFL Network is trying to manipulate public opinion into pressuring these groups to deliver the NFL Network games at rates the producers and operators don’t like.

If you visit the NFL website they promeniently feature their concerns about the evil cable operators. They offer highly edited quotes that appear to offer some sympathy to the NFL and provide various strategies that outraged NFL fans can pursue to register discontent with cable operators. And if you are a real sports fan, you can see people like Tony Kornheiser make snide comments about the failure of his cable operator to offer these games on his ESPN cable sports show, “Pardon the Interruption.” The fact that Tony is a football analyst for ESPN and therefore paid by the NFL is not disclosed.

If you take the central route, you are thinking that you can make your case on the merits. You believe that your arguments are the best arguments and will lead to more favorable elaboration activity in your receivers. It is straight-up, head-on, me-against-you, let-the-best-one-win persuasion. You don’t need to play any persuasion games that exemplify the peripheral route – no CLARCCS cues – just straight out logos, classic Aristotle, and the best arguments for rational minds.

The persuasion problem for the NFL here is that their arguments are not clean, simple, and fundamental. They wanted more money for these eight games and in a fair marketplace, they couldn’t get any takers for their offer. The NFL is now trying to mobilize their fan base to attack the cable operators and get the operators to take an offer they’ve already refused. As long as the fan base does not realize this, the NFL might succeed in this persuasion strategy. However, we are now in the seventh week of the scarce resource and the cable operators have not changed their minds. It looks like the NFL brought a knife to a gun fight. We’ll see confirmation of this if the NFL Network disappears after this year.

Remember the Rules: Great persuaders don’t need rich uncles, kindness from strangers, or third party vote splitters.