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A couple days ago I read an interesting article about QVC that explained a bit about how the company works. Like how each host has to go through six months of training before they do a show. Or how a producer will tell the host via earpiece to repeat what they just said because it caused a sudden increase in calls.
But what really got my attention was a part that asked the question: How does QVC sell perfume that their viewers can’t smell?
Good freaking question. It’s not something that I’d ever thought about before but it’s a really amazing thing to be able to get people to buy anything that they can’t interact with physically, let alone something as sensory dependent as perfume. So how do they do that? The article says:
The answer is that you tell a story—a story about the viewer, and the product’s place in her life.
What kind of stories, you might be asking…
…my fiancé flipped on QVC in the hotel room. An earnest young woman was extolling the many varieties of Philosophy perfume.
“This one’s very spiritual,” she said. “It’s good if you’re especially prayerful.”
Hmm sounds like the kind of story that would send many people’s bullshit detectors through the roof. But it’s also something that really strikes a chord with the demograpic that watches perfume ads on QVC.
I’m skeptical that a perfume mass produced by a corporation can be very spiritual or relevant to prayer. To me it sounds like that particular host was just using storytelling to hype the perfume in ways that weren’t true.
Personally I think honest stories are the best kind, but maybe honest stories wouldn’t sell very much perfume to people who can’t smell it. What do you think?
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There is the old saying by super salesman, Elmer Wheeler:
“Don’t sell the bacon, sell the sizzle”.
That is the principle at work with the perfume.
Very interesting about repeating phrases, etc. that result in a spike of sales.
Yeah no doubt QVC hosts are pros at selling the sizzle. Or maybe the ‘spirtual and prayerful qualities of the sizzle’ lol.