X-Message-Number: 1734
From: whscad1!kqb (Kevin Q Brown +1 201 386 7344)
Subject: CRYONICS MADison Avenue Meets Cryonics?
If a *little* knowledge can be a dangerous thing, then I probably
am dangerous now. The book "Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind"
by Al Ries and Jack Trout (1986, Warner Books, paperback, $4.99)
has been giving me ideas about marketing cryonics. That, by itself,
is dangerous, since, in a very real sense, we don't even have a
product to promote; nobody has ever gotten frozen and walked away
from it. But even if someone had, cryonics probably would remain
enormously unpopular until some marketing genius figured out how
to position it in such a way to make it sell. Hard to believe?
Bear this in mind then; cryonics is such an unpopular topic that
by our interest in cryonics alone, every one of us is demonstrably
way off at the fringes of the Bell curve. What seems logical and
natural to us could easily be wholly alien to almost everyone else.
Whether or not we *want* to attract any of the other 99.99999% of the
population is another matter. I will assume, however, that we want
to attract enough people to give us clout in this world because
otherwise we likely all will fail, and thus die.
So what is so interesting about these marketing ideas that anyone
would want to read any further? Here are some conclusions I have
reached:
(1) our perception of cryonics is vastly different from the
man-in-the-street perception of cryonics,
(2) we do not know how to express what business we are in,
(3) most of us do not even know who our competitors are, and
(4) the word "cryonics" is so unappealing that we should use
more appealing terminology for our organizations and services.
I also have several suggestions for why cryonics sells so poorly and how
we might improve our situation, but bear in mind how dangerous a *little*
knowledge is.
The most crucial notion in the book "Positioning" is that what affects
sales the most is what is in the mind of the customer, not what is in
the mind of the seller. Not very profound. But then consider what an
enormous number of messages bombard us each year and how few of them
we can retain. Only the simplest messages make it through, into the
minds of people. Photocopies = Xerox. Facial tissues = Kleenex.
Rental Cars = Hertz, Avis, and National, in that order. The "position"
is where the company fits in that short list for whatever category the
company gets pegged into. (Most companies don't even make the list.)
Now what about cryonics? Where does it fit into people's minds?
Bizarre mortuary practices = mummification, freezing, peeling flesh
off the bones (Tibet), vulture food
(Parsees in India), etc.
Yes, I know that the press has been getting better the last few years.
But look at the pictures accompanying the description of the cryonic
suspension contest in the Jan. 1993 issue of OMNI magazine. What do
they say to you? The logic is one thing. The image is another.
People remember the image.
That is where we are. Where do we want to be? Exactly what business
are cryonicists in, anyway? What is the competition? What images do
we want to evoke in the minds of the prospects? How do we get there?
There is no single right answer to these questions. The answers may
be different for each market segment. In particular, what is profoundly
important for one person may be irrelevant to another. (The Myers Briggs
personality type indicator gives some intriguing suggestions about that.)
The following represents, of course, my bias and my interests. Your
mileage may differ.
Exactly what business are cryonicists in?
Are we in the people freezing business? No, that is just part of the
mechanics. Nobody really *wants* to be frozen. (As the old saying goes,
it is the *second* worst thing that could happen to you.)
Some people on CryoNet suggested that we are in the immortality business,
and then were chastised immediately for being so brazen and politically
incorrect. ("It's too hubristic. Nobody will like you if you say that.")
The notion of immortality also has some technical difficulties. ("Are
you really *immune* to death, no matter what?") Personally, my only
problem with immortality is that it will take forever for me to prove
that I have achieved it [Neural Tweaker #1]. But if that is the
business we are in, then it will take forever to succeed, won't it?
Maybe we're in the "life preservation" business or the "stay healthy
a really long time" business or even the "galactic tourist" business.
Maybe. But those alternatives do not have the wonderful simplicity
and emotional power of something like "immortality". Ries and Trout
suggested that the answers, when you get them, are obvious. Getting
to the obvious is not always simple, though. What else could be as
simple as "immortality" and still carry the same emotional punch?
My suggestion, and you may disagree, is that the "root meme" for
cryonics is "outrage against death, with a grim determination to
defeat it by one's own hand". What? That doesn't sound simple!
Look at how many words it took to describe it! True, but what image
does it evoke? Imagine a person, thousands of years ago, standing
next to a fallen friend, shaking his fist in rage at the Gods, determined
to defeat their ugly game. Picture Gilgamesh travelling throughout
the known world in search of a way to conquer death. That is the sort
of primal image that drives us. And cryonics is, for now, our best
resolution for it.
The other 99.99999% of the world's people have other resolutions in
place. For cryonicists to reach them, we first need to find what
those competing resolutions are and then find how we can position
cryonics in their minds as a solution for what they want.
What is the competition?
Too many times I have seen cryonicists compare the various cryonics
organizations as if our main competition is each other. Ha! Ha! Ha!
Keith Henson has suggested that cryonics occupies the same memetic
niche (ie. marketing position) as religion. I think that he is much
closer to being right. What kinds of religious resolutions for that
primal image have people found throughout history? Certainly several
religions have offered promises of immortality (Christian heaven,
Norse Valhalla, etc.). Other religions or philosophies offer different
kinds of resolutions, such as dissolving the rage and determination
that is vexing us, along with ourselves (Buddhism).
Some even more common resolutions, though, have nothing to do with
religion at all:
Denial & Self-Deception. Follow-the-crowd.
Until recently, these strategies actually made good sense.
Why spend one's life fretting over something that you cannot do
anything about anyway? You would be better off just forgetting
about it and getting on with your life (and death). People who
did exactly that produced a world full of people like them.
Cryonicists are the misfits.
How do we take market share from our competitors?
This is where a lot of strategy and street-smarts comes in handy.
I certainly have no monopology on that, so while reading this,
let your imagination run wild. Maybe you will create a gem or two.
Here is the list of competitors:
(1) Religious Promises of Immortality,
(2) Religious Promises of Annihilation,
(3) Denial & Self-Deception, and
(4) Follow-the-Crowd.
By the way, I neglected to list "life is terrible and I want out now!"
because I doubt that any such person will last long enough to be a
serious prospect.
These competitors are all well-established. Before expending time
and energy on clever schemes for unseating them, heed the caution
from page 210 of "Positioning":
"... you can't compete head-on against a company that has a
strong, established position. You can go around, under or
over, but never head to head."
For example, we won't be able to tell Mr. Denial to "Wake Up! Cryonics
is Here!". As we have seen, in the almost 30-year history of cryonics,
the other competitors haven't budged any, either. The good news,
though, is that:
"Often, to create a viable position, you must reposition another
brand or even an entire category of product. As Tylenol did to
aspirin, for example."
What did Tylenol do to aspirin (besides giving it a headache)?
The initial Tylenol ad campaign pointed out the many ways in which
aspirin products could not accomplish what people really wanted
(due mainly to induced gastro-intestinal bleeding). And then it
offered Tylenol as a solution. This worked because what people
really wanted wasn't aspirin: it was a safe pain reliever.
For a cryonics promotion to work, it has to offer people what they
really want. But their minds will not be open to that until they
understand clearly that what they have now is not what they really want.
Now I will jump into my asbestos suit and outline my thoughts on
taking market share from our competitors.
(1) Religious Promises of Immortality
For someone who already has religious promises of immortality, what
does cryonics have to offer? As I pointed out in message #72,
"The traditional scenario for survival through reanimation from
cryonic suspension ... sounds like heaven; when you first re-awake
you will be surrounded by your friends and loved ones (who have
come back before you) and these people will all be young, healthy,
wise, incredibly wealthy and powerful by today's standards, and,
of course, in immortal bliss."
That makes cryonics just a me-too offering, though, and promoting it
that way will only be competing head to head with a well-established
competitor, which does not work.
Perhaps we could "Tylenol" those religious promises and leave those
people eagerly looking for something to replace their lost faith?
Give me a break! We are not in the business of changing people's
religion and quite enough misery has been inflicated upon this
world already by people's misguided attempts to do just that.
For these competitors, I suggest that we cannot go head-to-head, and
we cannot reasonably expect to reposition (i.e. "Tylenol") them either.
We can only go around, under, or over them. So what does cryonics have
to offer that people with a religious promise of immortality do not
have already? Something very practical: health preservation. To get
there, though, we need to reposition cryonics in their minds from
"bizarre mortuary practice" to something much better.
Brian Wowk's classic repositioning of cryonics was titled "The Death of
Death in Cryonics". (See message #50 for a review of that article.)
He makes the crucial point that cryonics is *not* about freezing dead
bodies and eventually magically bringing them back from the dead.
Instead, cryonics stabilizes terminal ill people *so that they do not die*.
We thus have cryonics patients, not frozen bodies. No longer do we
need to explain where people's souls go or worry about other religious
conundrums or Frankenstein-like fears, because cryonics patients have
not died.
This repositioning of cryonics makes possible a mind game that you
can play on Catholics, should you be so inclined. Here is my version
of an idea I saw in an early version of Cryonics : Reaching For Tomorrow:
(A) Suicide is a mortal sin.
(B) Refusing medical treatment that would prevent your death
is suicide.
(C) Therefore, opting for burial or cremation when conventional
medicine gives up on you, rather than being suspended,
is a mortal sin.
Saying that may shut someone up but don't expect any signups out of it.
For people with religious promises of immortality, cryonics is just a
health-maintenance option. Some will buy it. But, as we have seen,
most will not. So why aren't people lining up to buy our Super
Extraordinary Health Preservation Service? Probably because, as I
mentioned in the first paragraph, we don't have a product; nobody
has ever gotten frozen and walked away from it. There may also be a
dose of denial, self-deception, or follow-the-crowd involved, too.
One thing that we might do, rather than just give up on this competitor,
is to choose a better name for what we offer than "cryonics".
Yes, a better name. But that completely ignores all the important issues,
doesn't it? Well, consider this. Procter & Gamble has several laundry
detergent products, each targetted for a different niche:
Tide - gets your laundry white,
Cheer - gets your laundry whiter than white, and
Bold - gets your laundry bright.
Silly sounding isn't it? Procter & Gamble laughs all the way to the bank.
Each of those names, along with its promotional support, attracts a
targetted segment of the laundry detergent buying population. Successfully.
As Ries and Trout stress throughout the book, getting the right name
is *important*.
Now who would be attracted to the name "cryonics"? At first mention,
and that is probably all the further you will get, what does it sound like?
"CRY - ONICS. Technology to make you cry? It's something really
sad to be sure, probably tragic. I don't want to have anything
to do with it!"
But ... But ... It's so logical! You see, the Greek root "cryo"
means "cold" and you certainly have heard about "cryobiology" and
"cryogenics", established sciences. Yes, we are talking about science!
"Yeah. Yeah. And I bet you're going to tell me that
'cryptography' isn't about taking pictures of graves.
Get lost, you krypto-kryo-kook!"
See what trouble a bad name can cause? :-) Seriously, though, I
would like to see a more inviting name. Unfortunately, since the word
"cryonics" is so well-established, I don't believe that we should
attempt to create a competitor word to go head-to-head against it.
(As Ries and Trout point out, that strategy doesn't work.)
We can, however, make certain that we use inviting names for our
organizations, our products, and our services. Any organization
with "cryonics" in its name is starting with an unnecessary handicap.
Thus, the "American Cryonics Society", "Cryonics Institute",
"International Cryonics Foundation", and "Canadian Cryonics Society"
are suffering from this handicap whereas the "Alcor Life Extension
Foundation" and "Trans Time" are not. (The "Immortalist Society"
does not use "cryonics" but it does use the dreaded "I" word.)
What words, or phrases, would be better? What do you suppose will be
the name of the top suspension organization once the big guys and
Madison Avenue get in the act? "Biostasis" sounds like some kind of
biological static cling technology, but at least it isn't as bad as
"cryonics". How about "BioHaven" offering its "Door To Tomorrow" service?
Or maybe "Escape Hatch" with its "Beat The Reaper" special? Perhaps
"Safety Net" will catch you when you fall? Or "Sanctuary" will keep
you in a "holding pattern" until they can make you well?
(2) Religious Promises of Annihilation
People who want to be annihilated (perhaps after several rounds of
reincarnation) have a fundamental difference in values from cryonicists.
But what cryonics offers and what they want still have some common
ground because reanimation from cryonic suspension is kind of like
reincarnation. Promoting cryonics just like that, though, is competing
head to head against established competition, which doesn't work.
Even worse, at first glance which is all you'll get, cryonics looks
clearly inferior to reincarnation. Why would someone want our crude,
unreliable, expensive, messy, *man-made* reincarnation system when
they can stay with their automated, high-tech, free, *divine*
reincarnation system?
If there is such a thing as a technophilic believer in reincarnation,
then we may have an opening. As I see it, the greatest weakness of
their system is the total (or, to be charitable, near total) amnesia
one suffers from one incarnation to the next. That surely would
greatly inhibit one's progress toward learning the lessons needed to
achieve ultimate extinction, wouldn't it? If so, then we may
position cryonics as an improved method of practicing their religion,
after repositioning their current practice as inefficient:
Attention Fellow Buddhists, Hindus,
and New Age Dudes
For your next incarnation on the earthly plane,
be sure to use our new Samadhi (TM) soul recovery
system. Our patented personality restoration
technique has at least 1000 times the fidelity of
old-fashioned Buddha technology! You'll learn
life's vital lessons in far fewer incarnations
when you go the Samadhi way!
Note that this does not attempt to change their religion; it only
promotes changing their practice of it. Also, for better or (likely)
for worse, note that it still promotes cryonics as a bizarre mortuary
practice, a position we established long ago, rather than attempting
to reposition it as a life-saving medical technology.
(3) Denial and Self-Deception
The book "Vital Lies, Simple Truths (The Psychology of Self-Deception)"
by Daniel Goleman (Simon & Schuster, 1985) proposes that one of our
main methods of reducing pain is to dim our awareness of that painful
thing. This is a pain/attention tradeoff that applies to a lot more
than just the general public's lack of attention to rational means
for indefinitely postponing death (such as cryonics). The book quotes
the Indian epic, the Mahabharatta:
"What is the greatest wonder of the world?"
The answer is:
"That no one, though he sees others dying all around, believes he
himself will die."
If that is true, though, then how do life insurance agents ever sell
life insurance? Could it be in the name? After all, they are really
selling death insurance and calling it life insurance. But cryonics
is the only kind of life insurance that lives up to THAT name. Since
the name "life insurance" is taken, though, what do we call cryonics?
Keep On Truckin' insurance? Maybe some life (death) insurance agents
have more insight into this. Perhaps what they are really selling is
Peace Of Mind: "Yes, sir, I agree that you aren't really going to die,
but, just in case, wouldn't you like to know that your wife and kids
will be well taken care of?" If so, then what kind of Peace Of Mind
can cryonics offer? Perhaps that can be explored more thoroughly in
the next section.
(4) Follow-The-Crowd
The title "Follow-The-Crowd" is somewhat too restrictive. This
competition for cryonics is not just social conformity, but also
any memetic system that defines oneself in terms of the status quo.
(The rebel needs a society to rebel against. The snob needs someone
to snub.) As long as one is immersed in our culture's petty games,
it is easy to forget that it's small stuff. This section is a
pot pourri of Distractions and how cryonics perhaps can be sold
to even the most distracted of souls.
Basic Macho Man: For young, insecure men, one of those "muscle cars",
jacked-up high with extra floodlights and roll bars, is the perfect
penis extender. For these people, organizations such as Hard Dick, Inc.
will keep their members *very* hard for a *very* long time. That,
by itself, is not very exciting. But the flip side is that any
guy who is NOT signed up with Hard Dick is just a "Short Term Weenie".
And that is *bad* news because, as every Basic Macho Man knows,
luscious, horny women have *no* interest in a "Short Term Weenie."
Enhanced Macho Man - One of the most important lessons little
boys learn in the school yard is that, no matter how bad it gets,
it's not OK to quit. ("Joey's a sissy!") As for the Basic Macho
Man, the strategy here is to reposition business-as-usual as
something clearly unmasculine. In this case, we reposition death
as "a wimp's easy way out" and offer our "Never Say Die" service
as a solution. Thus, Mr. Macho, after being pumped full of lead
during a masculine altercation, can not only tell his opponents
"I'm no quitter!" but also utter the famous words of "Terminator"
Arnold Schwarzeneggar: "I'll be back!"
Women: As with men, women are told that they have little personal
worth unless they follow their assigned social prescription.
The repositioning strategy for women is not the same as for the
macho men, though. Instead, some personal reassurance of their
self-worth seems best:
You mean a lot to us and we don't want to lose you.
A Perma Care (TM) bracelet says "I love you" in the most
authentic way possible today.
This positions a gift of a cryonic suspension as a sincere expression
of appreciation of a woman's self-worth. It may be even better than
a diamond ring.
In our culture it's politically correct to say that you want to "live
your allotted time" but not politically correct to say that you
want to die, even though that logically follows "your allotted time".
This inconsistency is an opportunity to reposition the status quo as
the *irrational* alternative, thus making room in people's minds for
cryonics to be the sensible approach:
Q: Why do you want to live so long?
A: Why do you want to die?
The July 1986 issue of Cryonics magazine included an article by
Mike Darwin titled "A World Gone Wrong" which suggested that
many non-cryonicists lack sufficient self-esteem to think that
they should have a longer life. Curing their poor self-esteem
is not our business, but perhaps a little repositioning still
can make them a cryonics customer. My optimism comes from the
traditional success of Christianity in offering eternal life
to the downtrodden and thereby making them "customers" of
Christianity. The crucial message seems to be this:
If you buy the program, you deserve what it promises.
If you do not, you do not.
It's your choice.
The Christians word it more eloquently: "For he who believeth
in me shall have eternal life." (The equally important flip side
is that he who does not believe will go to hell.) Cryonics works
like that, too. I remember the "two Bob's" described in the June
1988 Cryonics magazine, Robert A. Heinlein and Bob the TV repairman.
Guess which one got suspended? Guess which one *deserved* to be
suspended? In the case of cryonics, the test is not belief,
but rather *vision* and willingness to act on that vision.
Remember: "Where there is no vision a people perish."
Social Snobs: Signing up for cryonic suspension can be a status
symbol, too. In repositioning a greatly extended lifetime (via cryonics)
as an option for the rich and famous, a high price is an *advantage*.
(Just don't be too public about how easy it is to finance with life
insurance.) Remember:
Anyone can die. But are you just anyone?
Here is a variant for the Intellectual Snobs. Signing up with
Brain Trust shows how intelligent you are:
Brain Trust - The Smart Choice
Advertisements will picture people of the future looking back
at how people of the 20th century died stupidly.
For space activists, who really want to personally explore space,
yet are becoming resigned to leaving that for future generations,
use a straightforward repositioning of cryonics as a solution for
their professed long-term goals. Imagine the following poster
displayed prominently at the next big space conference:
---------------------------------------------------
| | |
| picture of | picture of |
| a gravestone | rocket ships, |
| or a rotting | space colonies, |
| corpse | and you |
| | |
---------------------------------------------------
| Which is YOUR Long Term Goal? |
---------------------------------------------------
One of the often-voiced concerns people have about cryonics is
that they are afraid that at the other end they will be alone in
an incomprehensively strange world where they do not belong.
The repositioning strategy is to (1) picture a future world with
their friends and family in it and (2) show the sadness they will
cause their friends and family if they do NOT sign up for suspension:
Your friends will miss you ... and wonder why you didn't save yourself.
Don't forget the celebrity endorsements. Imagine George Burns saying:
"Even though I play God in the movies, in real life I put
my faith in two things, this cigar and BioHaven."
If the celebrity = God likes it, it *must* be good!
As you can see, the Follow-The-Crowd competition breaks down into
quite a crowd of market segments. I don't know which are most
worth pursuing, so rather than outlining positioning strategies
for "Escape Hatch", "Time Travel Tourism, Ltd", etc., I'll just
leave the rest to you. Before spending a lot of time, money, and
effort on this, though, consider the following two points:
(1) Many, if not most, cryonics signups are from personal acquaintance
with someone who signed up. Your personal example is the most
powerful statement you can make.
(2) Beware of trying to capture all market segments with the same
brand, because you will lose your brand name identification
that way. Use a different name for each market segment.
For example, Disney makes a lot of money on R-rated movies,
but not under the name "Disney," which stands for "wholesome
family entertainment." Instead, Disney markets its R-rated
movies under the name "Touchstone Pictures."
Finally, all this hype would be a lot more successful if we actually
had a product to sell. We need all the good research we can get so
that "The Prospect of Immortality" becomes the reality of revival
to an unbounded future.
Kevin Q. Brown
INTERNET
or
"Does 'cryonics' just leave you cold? How about 'Fry-onics' or 'Worm-onics'?"
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