[derefr]

Some services are solutions to a problem people don’t realize they have. To tell them about the solution, you first have to convince them that they have the problem. And the problem, in this case, is something created by the UX choices made by the ecosystem of their competitors.

The first car with seat-belts had to explain in its advertising just how existing cars are dangerous, before it could explain how seatbelts fix that problem. People would start off thinking that existing cars are just fine; the ad needed first-and-foremost to make them believe that they weren’t; to foment a state of irritation or even disgust at “the way things are.”

——

Not to say it’s always a real problem, necessarily. You can convince people they have a problem whether or not they would have agreed they have a problem if they were just provided with some additional straight facts.

See: the invention of deodorant. First take something society doesn’t actually care about, even if it’s pointed out—the fact that you smell sour after a hard day’s labor—and make it into an etiquette faux pas for people to be able to notice that about you in the public sphere. Then you can sell the solution.

Admittedly, even this manipulative version of the technique can still have unintentional positive knock-on effects: public transit probably never would have been bothered with as a concept without you and the sardines around you on the train being deodorized first.

[hluska]

I don't think seat belts are a very good example of effective ads. The first ads for seat belts started showing up in the late 1950s. By 1981, only 11% of people regularly buckled up. 11% uptake on a device that will keep you from being killed after ~ 25 years isn't particularly good. Seat belt use didn't become a big deal until State Farm Insurance sued the NHTSA (and won) in 1983.

As for the rest of your post, you're right, though you can introduce a problem without devoting hundreds of repetitive words to bashing a competitor. Talk about how hard it is to use chat in remote teams, or talk about any of the other problems with chat. That will at least get people to agree.

In this ad, greater than half the content was devoted to bashing Slack. At best, that's unprofessional. At worst, it's a very poor strategy.

If I were Slack, I'd keep an eye on whatever the hell this company is called and build the feature of it catches on.