4. “You don’t measure truth, you feel for it” - Richard Storey.

There’s a common misconception amongst marketers that numbers change people’s minds. They very rarely do.

Car insurers, for example, revel in telling us that they pay out “99% of claims made”.

The desired response to which is something along the lines of:

“Well, there I was thinking that car insurers were notorious for weedling out of paying claims, but here’s a provider that pays out 99% of the time. That’s it. I’m convinced. This brand must be different - they must really care about supporting their customers”.

But, of course, that’s not really how anyone responds.

In fact, quite the opposite. The most natural reaction to such a “fact” is to question its authenticity. They start scanning the small print. Looking for an asterisk.

Where facts are pushing water uphill, they don’t do anything to change minds.

Conversely, where they’re reinforcing what we already know, they deepen and entrench our beliefs.

Consider Guinness’ famous claim “It takes 118.2 seconds to pour the perfect pint of Guinness”. Because that fact is reinforcing something we already know about the product, it can enhance our belief in that truth. Even though nobody really believes the “fact” to be (exactly) true.