Interview/Giveaway: Currencies That Buy Credibility

Note: You can maybe win a signed copy of this book. That’s at the bottom, but it’s fun to win stuff, so I wanted to point out the payoff at the end.

“Consumers don’t believe the promises anymore. If the ad says, ‘ninety-out-of-a-hundred people prefer fill-in-the-blank,’ we cynically assume that those 90 are the advertiser’s 90 best friends and relatives. We know that numbers can be interpreted to mean almost anything. So, the situation now is that numbers have lost their credibility, and yet creativity isn’t strong enough to stand on its own.”

– Faith Popcorn

Used to be – and not that long ago – that you ponied up your advertising bucks, showered the masses with frequent creativity, and they lemminged their way to your door to pay retail.

But, if creativity’s lost its magical luster, what do you do now?

Meet Tom Wanek, entrepreneur, strategist, researcher, and – most importantly for you and your business today – author of the forthcoming book, Currencies that Buy Credibility (amazon link).

Does his title imply your business can spend money to buy a customer’s trust? Is this 1920’s Chicago politics? How can we trust this Wanek character if that’s his inference?

He is, after all, an Ohio State fan. Let’s see if we can read between the lines of this new book.

TIM: What’s the book’s primary argument? Why’s it important now?

TOM: The book’s position is that customers are looking for a buying experience they can trust. Consider that five thousand advertising messages ambush us daily. And many of these ads are overloaded with ad-speak and hype, leaving overwhelmed consumers scrambling to decipher which messages are believable.

The book teaches you how to inject credibility into your marketing by investing one or more of six currencies.

TIM: In the book’s promotional materials, you specifically point out money’s one of six currencies. Are you suggesting that I can categorically buy credibility like buying ad time/space? Can you give an example?

TOM: Yes, and you can even lose credibility when you fail to invest these currencies. Which is exactly what happened to Sprint in 2007 when the cellular company tried to sweep aside its problems by firing 1,000 customers.

TIM: Would you be willing to share another of the six? Or, at least, illustrate one of the other six or give an example of a business that we might know who’s successfully using one of the others?

TOM: In addition to money, you can invest:

• Time and Energy
• Opportunity
• Power and Control
• Reputation and Prestige
• Safety and Well-Being

Scion, Google, Avis and Patagonia are just a few of the companies that successfully purchase credibility by investing these additional currencies.

TIM: What was the spark that started this currency connection for you?

TOM: I was inspired by Signaling Theory — how animals communicate using bizarre behaviors and physical traits. This got me thinking about how marketers could communicate more credibly with their customers.

TIM: Is the idea scalable? That is to say, can it work for an owner-operated company as well as, say, Avis or Patagonia?

Yes, any business can apply these principles. My favorite example in the book discusses how an owner-operated used car dealership in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada purchases credibility to win the hearts and pocketbooks of its customers. If a used car dealership can purchase credibility, anyone can.

TIM: Any surprising applications of your currencies?

TOM: A rookie politician used these principles to win a Council-at-Large seat in my hometown. He beat the incumbents and was the top vote getter in his race. Oh, and he ran as a Republican in a predominantly Democratic town.

TIM: Who’ll benefit from this book?

TOM: Any business that doesn’t own a monopoly. I mean, what business wouldn’t want to drive more traffic, sales and word-of-mouth by speaking more credibly to its customers?

Thanks for your time, Tom. Not owning a monopoly, I’m sold. Each of my clients will be getting a copy of this book for the holidays. I hope you’ll consider pre-ordering a copy or ten today. It ships from Amazon on November 23rd.

You can download the table of contents and/or a sample chapter if you like. I also recommend you check out and subscribe to Tom’s blog: Marketing Beyond Advertising.

In fact, let me know you’ve signed up for Tom’s blog and what you think of his theory and why it might be applicable to your industry in the comments of this post, and you may win a signed copy of the book so you can give your Amazonian copy to a friend or colleague and be even a little bit cooler than you are right now … which isn’t easy.