The Rule of 7

Repeatedly getting info can translate to truth and goodness

This is a post from Paperdolls.Today, under the section “Sales Techniques.” The intent of this section is to help people, particularly the vulnerable such as sexual assault survivors, to understand if and when they might be manipulated by sales techniques. If you wish to unsubscribe or subscribe to any sections of Paperdolls.Today, please follow Substack’s instructions.

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The Rule of 7 is an old marketing adage.¹ Basically it says that a prospect or customer needs to see our message 7 times before they even think about saying yes to the purchase.

Repeatedly hearing or seeing a product or slogan registers as something familiar.

Familiar gets logged as something good or true. Even fear can be considered "good" because who wants to be eaten by the saber tooth tiger lurking behind the corner?

Analytics are more sophisticated and have evolved from the old market adage of the Rule of 7.

FEAR

Fear is a complex primary emotion. It can be healthy and it can be junk cluttering our minds and impairing our serenity.

For our modern society, I don't believe we have saber tooth tigers lurking behind corners. But the remnants of fear still run rampant through our DNA. And, children who were sexually abuse have that fear deeply embedded in their biology. ²

The fears that no longer serve us, can be examined and reframed. Every survivor deserves to do that for themselves.

I'm mentioned this before³ I still believe FDR's famous quote: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself"

Back to the Rule of 7.

That rule has evolved, many marketing and advertisers admonish that is a minimum. Most believe that people need to be exposed to a message 10-26 times before it registers.

In my competitive athletic days, my coach repeated prompts for skills that many times per work-out. We joked he was a broken record.⁴

I think you get the jest. If you don't, do a search⁵ of "the Rule of 7"

My personal opinion: Less is more. If one can convey their message with less, the message has more power.

The important aspect of this post today is to be aware of the repeat messages you are fed. And, please remember, just because you've heard it, seen it, or been exposed to a certain message or product numerous times--doesn't change the nature of the product or message.

Don't be manipulated. Ridiculous is still ridiculous. Lies are still lies. Hearing a lie repeatedly doesn't make it true. On the chance that you hear something and it finally registers with your conscious awareness--think about it. Will it enhance your life? Will it serve you? Or is this message simply trying to get you into an emotional state to manipulate you?

1. In 1956, Harvard University psychologist George Miller published a paper about his studies into “channel capacity of the mind.” In short, he found people can hold about seven bits of information in their heads at any given time. That’s why phone numbers were comprised of seven digits.

2. https://www.paperdolls.today/p/we-need-the-courage-to-look-this

3. see what I'm doing here? I'm repeating the message for obvious reasons.

4. There's a video of a scratch vinyl record in the middle of this post

5. Please don’t “google” that algorithm feeds right into confirmation biases