It’s time for brands to come clean about their flaws

Can being honest about imperfections benefit brand strategy in the long-run? ZenithOptimedia’s Richard Shotton and Chloe Romano look at the evidence.

Over the next few weeks thousands of candidates will vie for graduate roles at agencies. The competition is so fierce that even securing an interview is tough.

Jeff Scardino, a former creative at Ogilvy & Mather, has undertaken a novel experiment which suggests that the best tactic for getting noticed might be a counter-intuitive one. He has created two versions of his CV and sent them out to ten job openings that he was qualified for.

One of the versions followed the standard approach and referenced his many successes while the other openly admitted his flaws. Some of his weaknesses mentioned included that he “could be more punctual”, and that “I don’t take the best notes in meetings but look like I do because I’m drawing”.

Intriguingly, the CV which admitted his flaws was much more successful than the standard one. The “flawed” CV received five interview requests whilst the standard version received none.

Scardino’s results are not a one-off. A series of academic studies suggests that admitting weaknesses might be an effective tactic. Eliot Aronson, from the University of California, was the first academic to investigate this bias, now known as the “pratfall effect”.

Aronson recorded a colleague answering a series of quiz questions. The colleague, having been primed with the answers, answered 92% of them correctly. At the end of the quiz the colleague then pretended to spill a cup of coffee over himself.

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The recording was played to a large sample of students, who were then asked how likeable the contestant was. However, Aronson split the students into cells and played them different versions: one with the spillage included and one without. Overwhelmingly, the students found the clumsy contestant more likeable.

So why do these imperfections make people more attractive? And more importantly how can brands apply these insights?

It might be that admitting weaknesses makes brands seem more human. In an age where many prefer the authentic to the mass produced this might boost appeal. Or could it work because everyone assumes that brands are fallible.

If a brand is open about its failings it can convince consumers that its weaknesses lie in inconsequential areas. Claiming perfection leaves consumers fearing the worst and perceiving the brand as a braggart.

This theory partially explains the success of budget airlines. At launch they openly admitted that the trade-off for cheap prices was a compromised service: no reservations and a small luggage allowance. If they hadn’t admitted as much, consumers may have assumed the cost-cutting had come at the expense of safety.

Counter-intuitively, the perfect brand strategy may be to admit imperfection.