Ep #53: The Streisand Effect
Making heavy decisions with large downstream impacts requires you to understand the possible consequences, which is tough to do without the right tools. Casey Stanton is the Founder of CMOx, a Fractional CMO, and author of the Wall Street Journal #1 bestseller, The Fractional CMO Method. Casey expounds upon using the Streisand Effect as a mental model for Fractional CMOs to crack the tough questions that companies need them to solve.
Episode highlights:
The Streisand Effect refers to the phenomenon that occurs when an attempt to hide, remove, or censor information had the unintended consequence of increasing awareness of that information. This frequently happens through the internet.
As marketing leaders, when you are faced with certain situations, you need to ask if it is better to address the situation or stay quiet and let the situation pass by.
- Scenario #1: The wrong link is sent in a webinar email invite. Now, you need to decide whether it’s better to reply with “CORRECTION – UPDATED LINK” or a lookalike email that will nest over the mistake because people will read the newest email.
- Scenario #2: Your client receives a negative Google review. If you get exposed for trying to bury it under fake reviews, your client is now known for lying on top of the bad review. In this case, you have to weigh the risks of ignoring it or finding a different solution.
- Scenario #3: Your client is hit with bad press and it’s high in SERP. You could fight to get it taken down, but lawyers are expensive. Rather, if you can’t politely get it removed, you could flood the search engine with positive content.
These are the highly consequential decisions you have to make as a CMO. Being a CMO means solving bigger problems by taking accountability and owning the outcomes of their decisions.
The Streisand is a powerful mental model that allows you to see the possible outcomes of a solution to a problem so that you can weigh whether or not it’s worth the risk.
Quote of the show:
”That’s what it means to be a CMO. It means to solve bigger problems and be able to take accountability and own the outcomes of them”
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