Deep Dive: 🙅 Misdirection Marketing

Hey, Marketer! 

There’s a trick folks use on Reddit to get answers to their question.

No, it’s not simply posting the question and sitting and waiting – they take an additional step by creating a fake account and replying to THEIR OWN question with a completely WRONG answer.

The “Well, actually” gang comes out in droves.

And boom – many answers to the original question.

Why? Because everyone loves to correct (maybe I should’ve called this issue Mansplaining…)

A useful tip for everyday personal life, but how can brands use this cognitive bias to create engagement among customers?

In this week’s deep dive, I’m covering Misdirection Marketing.

Today's Treasure Trove

• What is Misdirection Marketing?

• How to Use Misdirection Marketing

• Shining Examples of Misdirection Marketing

  • Virgin Voyages’ “Leaked email”

  • Lululemon’s “We Made Too Much”

  • Hostess’ “Touchdown.”

What is Misdirection Marketing?

Quite simply, Misdirection Marketing is planned “snafus” that get customers or an audience to engage with the content in error.

The phrase, “The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing at all” comes to mind here, because often, people are in the dark on the fact that these mistakes were made intentionally – for the purpose of creating buzz.

• On social media, a mistake can attract comments (a huge engagement metric).

• In emails, mistakes can get folks to open and scan the whole email (high reading rate).

• In traditional media, mistakes can create earned media, because news outlets love covering when brands “mess up.”

How to Use Misdirection Marketing

Tbh, the pull to be right is powerful.

But don’t make the mistake that this is a tactic you can employ often. 

1. Folks will catch on to the fact that it’s intentional “engagement bait”

2. Used too often, mistakes can tarnish your brand – making it seem unprofessional and amateurish

3. It’s phenomenal for engagement and shareability, not so great for actual conversions

Excellent methods for using Misdirection Marketing include:

• Putting a typo in an email subject line – Entry-level intention mistake but grabs users’ interest and can get them to open up. Make sure to follow up with incredible content in the email.

• Sending a “leaked email” before a campaign is “supposed to launch” – This concept has become more popular in recent years, especially around Black Friday. The email goes out with the Black Friday promotion, before the stated date, containing some lorem ipsum for added effect *chef’s kiss. Bonus points for sending a follow-up “Sorry about that, but we’ll honor the campaign!” email an hour or two later.

• Stating an incorrect fact in a social media post – Arbitrage opportunity, because Meta just announced they’re axing their fact-checking and moving to “community notes.” Meaning, there will be the opportunity for engagement by compelling the audience to correct the post. Make sure it’s an innocuous unfactual statement, though.

• “We made too much!” sales – For consumer goods, the “We made too much!” is a fun repositioning for a sale of a season’s leftover items. But in this case, it positions the sale as a “we need to move this product fast!” rather than “here are the leftovers.”

Shining Examples of Misdirection Marketing

Virgin Voyages’ “Leaked email”

The “original” leaked email (as far as I can tell) came from Virgin’s cruise line several days before their Black Friday sale. 

They followed it up 90 minutes later with a “Welp, we’re human!” email that referenced the first snafu. 

The body of the email even has lorem ipsum – was this first one real or a clever marketing stunt? 

I’m no marketing historian, but what’s important is that brands have jumped on this opportunity to start their Black Friday promotion early with a “mistake” email.

Lululemon’s “We Made Too Much”

For a more premium brand like Lululemon, “sale” is an unsexy word. 

So they decided to rebrand their marked down items as “We Made Too Much.” Their campaigns were so successful that they decided to keep this repositioning permanently.

An amazing way to retain all their brand integrity without making copy or automation errors and instead make it look like the mistake was in logistics.

Hostess’ “Touchdown.”

Okay, for those not in the USA, the Hostess cake looks like a baseball, but “touchdown” is an American football term.

Loads of comments like “wrong sport. Lol” – stellar way to bring some engagement to their social channel.

This one is obviously done intentionally, but still attention-grabbing and playful. What’s great is that sports fans won’t be offended (because no specific team was “attacked”) and non-sports fans still know it was a mistake and can laugh at it.

Wrap Up

Misdirection Marketing is a bold, buzz-worthy way to grab attention and score some earned media.

But tread lightly – overdo it, and your brand risks looking disingenuous. Audiences can sniff out gimmicks fast.

No matter what, the offer you follow up with must be compelling. A Virgin Voyages email with a mediocre sale won’t garner the same excitement – it could even hurt the brand if customers are then outraged by a lowball offer.

The beautiful thing is, Misdirection Marketing is great for one-off campaigns that capitalize on events unrelated to your product (like the Hostess tweet) – creating a nice pocket to get into the conversation.

Hope your year is going well so far! How’re those resolutions holding up? 😉

✌️,

Tom at Marketer Gems