Of course I’d be interested! I had the privilege of doing live commentary from Sky News’ London headquarters on ”Super Tuesday” in 2008, when the outcome of the U.S. election was anything but a slam dunk for Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton and John McCain looked just as likely to gain the edge over their opponents come November’s election night. 

The upcoming elections in Britain–while not of the same historical magnitude as Barack Obama’s meteoric rise and election in the U.S.–would still be a nice gig, particularly since live U.S. style debates between the candidates make their debut for the first time ever in the UK election process. Spectacle-wise it will match the U.S. elections, no doubt. Watching the polished media-savvy super-politician David Cameron square off against the introverted, shy and somewhat shleprock-natured Gordon Brown will remind some viewers of the bullfights in Spain, with Matador Cameron all glamour, style and slicing rhetoric that will have his opponent seeing red, and Brown, well, we all know how the bull usually ends up. (If you’ve never tuned into C-span when it’s questioning hour and Britain’s MPs lay into the ruling party’s cabinet with questions and fervor that would make U.S politicos’ blood freeze, have a look and you’ll know what I mean. Debates really are debates in British politics, and deep knowledge, anticipation and Q & A readiness can mean the difference between a bloodbath and a victory lap in the public eye.)

But back to the point of this post. Yes, I would have been very interested to critique Cameron’s, Gordon’s and the other fellow’s communication and rhetorical battle of wits for Sky News, live, from London. But, alas, I slept right through the call. Mr. Williams friendly inquiry from London registered on my voicemail at 4 AM with my phone gently vibrating an arm’s length from my head, I’m sure. When I called back to happily accept the assignment an hour or so later, James regretfully and politely informed me that they had filled the slot and assured me that I’ll have first dips again next time.

So why a taste of my own medicine? Because, as I say in my new book, Executive Presence: The Art of Commanding Respect Like a CEO, when the media calls, be ready to jump. When you have the chance to show your wares to a potential audience of millions, hitting the snooze-button is the last thing you’ll want to do. Or having your phone on ‘vibrate’ for that matter.

I call it the Visibility Technique. This principle holds—and it’s been scientifically proven as a valid and predictable human response—that repeated exposure to an image, thought, object, person, message or other stimuli tends to induce a positive reaction, all things being equal and, this is important, without the presence of a negative prejudice. This, of course, sends advertisers and image consultants into throes of strategic ecstasy, since it validates their purpose and very existence: the more you put it out there, the better your chances are of successfully reaching your target demographic. This used to be thought of simply as “branding,” but that doesn’t do the Visibility Technique the justice it deserves. More accurately, the Visibility Technique is all about the powerful psychology of subliminal familiarity.

One only needs to peruse the aisles of the neighborhood grocery store to witness the Visibility Technique in play. Right next to the familiar brand names that fill the pages of our magazines and the airwaves of our radios and televisions are less well-known so-called “generic” products that are, in fact, the very same products with a different label. Yet even though those generics sell for less money, people continue to regard the branded items as superior in quality and desireability. The generic version may not carry the slightest negative bias, but the branded version leverages a very real positive context toward consumer preference. The only chance the generic stands is to price itself into the game.

If you’ve winced when your pharmacist asks if you’d like the generic equivalent of a prescription drug, fearing something less than the results (hair growth, a calmer stomach, hemorrhoid shrinkage, pick your cure) promised in that 30-second spot on television, then welcome to the Visibility Technique. And if you’ve ever taken a teenager shopping for athletic shoes, you’ve already felt the effects of this branding/marketing panacea right where it counts, in your wallet—if it doesn’t have a swoop or three stripes, or the name of a branded superstar on the label, then it’s just not cool, even at half the price.

Marketers, agents, trainers, campaign managers and others engaged in the profession of propaganda are positively apoplectic about the possibilities, as well they should be. Because suddenly, with this awareness, the message is no longer all that matters—it’s all about frequency of exposure and the context within which those exposures take place. While you could read the scientific white papers that justify all the excitement, it boils down to this: the more you’re exposed to something, the more likely you are to form a positive attitude, and a preference towards it. In the absence of any reason to attach a negative context to the ‘thing’ or person—such as a bias, a bad prior experience or a contrary opinion from someone you trust—the mere frequency of the exposure creates a comfortable familiarity on a purely emotional realm. Chances are you won’t even know why you prefer the ‘thing’ or person—the feeling just sneaks into your subconscious. This, then, becomes an attitudinal paradigm irrevocably—again, at least until something negative creeps into the picture—attached to the object or person at hand. Now, cut to the moment at which your attitude or opinion counts: you are considering a purchase, a vote, or the opportunity to make a decision. The only cognitive resource available in this moment is that subliminally positive context resulting from repeated proximity and visibility. While some negative influence is required to shift your attitude to the dark side, it’s also true that your positive attitude requires none—zero, nada—of the mediating cognitive or motivational processes normally associated with opinion-making. All that is required is that you are familiar with, and comfortable with, what you’ve seen or been exposed to. Why? Because we feel “safe” in holding a positive context for the object or issue at hand when it is familiar and without negative context. And safety is the cornerstone of human response.

You can conduct a little social experiment yourself; Next time you’re riding the subway with your fellow commuters, look at the people around you and ask yourself—if I had an emergency right now, who would I most likely approach to help me? Chances are you would pick a person that you see often, even though you’ve never had either a good or bad experience with them. In fact, you’ve never exchanged a word with them. The natural preference you feel towards that person is the sense of familiarity that breeds not contempt, but security.

Speaking of scientific white papers, there’s been plenty of them written on this issue. For the most part they yield the same results: the Visibility Technique is as reliable as gravity and taxes. The hypothesis was first put forth by Robert Zajonc, the Polish-born American social researcher who in 1968 termed the phenomenon the “mere exposure effect” (at last, a scientist not given to the pomposity of laboratory labeling) and has since been challenged, studied and proven again and again by notable social researchers, from A.H. Eagly and S. Chaiken in their 1993 book, The Psychology of Attitudes, to the website-specific research conducted by Singh Fang in 2007.

The Visibility Technique boils down to two essences: put it out there, and don’t let it get dirty in the process. Nowhere is this two-sided coin more in evidence than in the political world, as candidates hump the stump across the land with the primary objective of getting face-time on the local news. The press hovers nearby, thirsty for a verbal misstep, and when it occurs, they pounce like famished birds of prey to blow it into the latest scandal of who-said-what, followed by urgent clarifications, repositionings, denials, and occasionally, the reluctant apology. But let’s call this game what it is: it’s the Visibility Technique in full and glorious action, and the entire process of campaigning for office hinges on it. The more the candidate is seen and heard, the more voters will pay attention.

The science of exposure has, of course, been kicking around the advertising and PR community since the advent of media. From corporate logos and other branding symbols appearing on everything from Formula One race cars to your little sisters lunch bag. In the U.S., there hasn’t been a Budweiser television commercial that’s really about beer since the first American Football Super Bowl. You’d think Anheiser-Busch was peddling horses. But the commercials make us laugh; we are generally having a good time as we watch the game that brings us those commercials, thus the context of the experience of being exposed to the brand is a positive one. The rationale is simple: people buy what they know, and what is highly visible becomes what they know, even if they’ve never sampled the product. And if the context of their “knowing” is a positive one, the product has to tank badly to fall out of favor.

One of the key strategic levers of applying the Visibility Technique to product promotion is that it gives you the ties. In other words, when a consumer and a product first come together, and if the consumer has at least a neutral attitude about the product, then, thanks to the effects of the Visibility Technique, repeated exposure creates a preference for that product. Even if the experiences with that product have been non-extraordinary, they emerge as a positive perception of the wares you’re selling. People, for instance, talk up a certain brand of vodka because the logo is all the rage, and—let’s get real, nobody with a shred of honesty or ego in their bones can really say that one vodka tastes any better than another—it’s love at first sip for the new initiate getting stuck with the tab.

One aspect of the Visibility Technique relates to the venue or vehicle of the exposure itself. The time and place of exposure has much to do with the context in which that exposure occurs, which translates to the degree of positive context applied to the product by the observer. Studies show brand names prevalent at sporting events, for example—similar in this case to the Budweiser advertising strategy—create a generally favorable impression for the underlying sponsors, even without actual advertising content in a features-benefits sense. The same is true for branding and messages promulgated over the internet in the form of banner advertising and paid search engine visibility—that particular audience demographic, which is both wide and diverse, quickly assigns meaning to any company progressive enough to invest in this venue, and the meaning is generally a good one.

Without the opportunity to deliver content, though, the Visibility Technique does present certain limitations. The product itself is the primary deliverer of context—people like beer, they like expensive athletic shoes, they water at the mouth at the sight of Colonel Sanders’ face on a bus. It’s all positive, and thus the repeated exposure has the desired payback. But people who don’t drink may not agree. Toss in even the slightest shadowy perception, or even worse, a negative context, and the effect diminishes rapidly—imagine the British Labour Party promoting itself with a profile of a grinning Gordon Brown—a rare image, granted—and you get the idea here.

Where people are concerned—again, the Visibility Technique applies to relationships as well as branding—there is risk when not everyone shares the same opinion. If a negative context is present, then repeated exposure stands to actually amplify the tension with each glimpse. Just ask a Conservative in the UK about spotting the Prime Minister’s face on every bus that passes him. Small irritations, easily forgotten when the other party is both out of sight and out of mind, become outright personality conflicts when the two parties get too much of each other too quickly. Here in the United States, during a dramatic and historic election campaign for President, former Senators Obama and Clinton may have made nice on the dais before and after a debate, but the mutually projected civility barely masked either candidate’s icy resolve. Both realized that the exposure they were getting couldn’t overtly portray negative behavior towards each other, as this would have diminished the Visibility Technique’s effect of preference via neutral or positive experiences. No-one likes a sourpuss. Particularly Secretary Clinton had been learning this lesson in stages.

Speaking of Mr. Obama, it was no coincidence that he’d been breaking records during his fund-raising efforts for campaign ‘08. The rap on him was that he was more effective for the way he said things than for what he actually said, which, in essence, is the Visibility Technique in action. Critics charge he’s still at it. He shows up, smiles, exudes abundant charisma, and the faithful quickly rip open their checkbooks. Only a verbal miscue—they speculate—would rain on this rainmaking parade, which he has thus far managed to sidestep and explain away with great skill and the advice of a bus full of executive speech coaches—like yours truly—strategists and image gurus.

In summary, we all suspected that advertising and promotion was nothing if not the application of psychological science to the shaping of public opinion. As branding and sponsorship efforts increase—there is nothing more visible than a company’s name permanently grafted onto the side of a stadium—we sense the move from content-driven product promotion to a pure and simple use of the Visibility Technique as a strategic centerpiece. If nothing else it cuts down on copywriting and production costs. And where relationships are concerned, from business to the political and personal, another old adage becomes valid more than ever: truer words were never spoken. This in today’s promotional world translates to, the less said, the better. Just stay visible and the rest will take care of itself.

For this and many other techniques, strategies and coaching advice on building a powerful executive presence, get the new book, Executive Presence: The Art of Commanding Respect Like a CEO

© Harrison Monarth 2009