FREE – Good or Bad Branding?
I read a great blog post today on the power of using the word FREE.
For years, advertising gurus have listed ?free? on every compilation of powerful headline words. Now, research conducted by Dan Ariely (a Duke behavioral economist, previously at MIT) shows us that ?free? is far more effective than ?almost free.? Indeed, a preference for ?free? seems to be another feature hardwired into our brains.
Click here for the remainder of the article. Very interesting.
Do you think using free is a good or bad branding element?
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July 17th, 2008 at 1:17 am
While I don’t doubt its power as a selling tool, I do question how effective it might be as a branding element.
For one thing, it could be perceived as setting a low value on your brand. I think that’s somewhat unlikely, but could be an issue.
A bigger problem is that when you consistently market yourself on the word “free,” you don’t create brand ambassadors, you create (if you’ll pardon the term) “entitlement whores.” AKA, people who want to leech everything they can off you and never pay a cent. My own company is going through this right now we are a social organization that spent too many of our early years stressing that paid membership was preferred, but optional, and that everyone could be a member and use our website tools for free. They continue to demand that we give them access to everything for free, and that we send out free materials, etc.
So I’m tempted to say that while “free” is an excellent promotional element (I’ve seen people spend $60 to get a free pin that was worth $2), I have severe reservations about its use in branding.