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The Silent Majority

By: Dwayne W. Waite Jr.

When one learns of debate and the art of persuasion, you learn about the spectrum of opinion. There will be a group of people who will always agree with you, no matter what, and there will be a group that will always disagree with you, no matter what. The goal of the debater or persuader, then, is to attract as many people from the center as possible. The same goes for politics; political campaigners rarely base strategy on winning only one particular side; they must go for the middle. Is the same theory accurate for advertising?

The answer could depend. As professional communicators, we depend very much on feedback, and in this social age, having a conversation with the consumer is becoming crucial to any kind of advertising campaign. However, when it comes to research and gaining feedback, is it not true that we usually hear from the "loud minority," or those who either really love or really hate the product or service being discussed? Marketing professors wrote recently in MIT's Sloan Management Review about this very topic of social proofing, comments, and reviews on the web. The research proves our hypothesis that most customers stay quiet and are influenced by the loud ones or simply sit back and watch the show. The Freakonomics author points out that the professors tell retailers (and marketers alike) to "ignore the white noise." Well, that's a little troubling, is it not? If the advertising folks can not rely on the feedback it is receiving, then how can it foster accurate judgment on its performance? If the loud minority is unreliable, how can the advertising industry mobilize the silent majority? Is it worth it?

As the consumer's environment shrivels into a niche, it can be assumed that the silent majority in every market will too shrink. "Experts" and the like will advocate and prophesy that engaging the consumer in conversation and monitoring the interactions will be key in getting more opinions from those who usually stay on the sidelines.

This approach is not what advertising is accustomed to, for it is used to targeting only opinion-leaders and gatekeepers and create advocates to their brands. Becoming immersed and directing interactions and targeting behaviors could change the way advertising activities change, since more opinions will be heard, gathered, and evaluated. This is great news for the marketing and brand scientists who are building a data goldmine of consumer behavior in order to determine ad perhaps even predict choice is a dream come true.

But, will it happen? Or as the market shrinks, will the loud minorities become even louder, stifling out those part of the silent majority?

The silent majority question can be applied to the advertising industry as well. There are a few voices or "thought leaders" for the industry heard all the time, and surely (hopefully) they do not represent the thoughts and opinions held by every practitioner. It is not possible. These people are held on pedestals and repeat the same mumbo jumbo, each one in their own self-created vocabulary, and brands and media personnel run with it.

The question can be raised in both cases, why is the majority so silent?

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About the Author

Dwayne W. Waite Jr. is partner and principal at JDW: The Charlotte Agency, a marketing and advertising shop in Charlotte, NC. He enjoys consumer behavior, economics, and football.

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