Consumer researcher Karen Wallach of the University of Alabama in Huntsville was shopping for a mattress when an ad stopped her. It showed a comfort scale, soft on one end and firm on the other, and said these mattresses were a poor fit for anyone who wanted the extremes. She and her husband like something in between. The ad never claimed the mattress would suit them. It just made the mattress sound as if it had been made for them.
Eight experiments on exclusionary advertising
She turned that moment into research. With Sean Blair of Georgetown University and Jaclyn Tanenbaum of Florida International University, she ran eight experiments, published in the Journal of Consumer Research. One of them pitted two coffee ads against each other. The first said: if you like dark roast, this is the coffee for you. The second said: if you don't like dark roast, this isn't the coffee for you. People who like dark roast responded better to the second one. People outside that group responded worse, which is the whole point.
A field test with a toothbrush brand
The authors also tested it in the wild. A toothbrush brand ran a Facebook campaign in which only the headline changed. The version that said who the toothbrush was not for drew more clicks and more engagement. When the researchers asked marketing professionals which version would win, most picked the friendly one.
Why dissuasive framing works: target specificity
The mechanism has a name: target specificity. A line that excludes someone makes the product look built for a narrower group. A reader who recognises himself in that group feels the fit go up. A reader who does not feels it drop. Perceived fit then drives the response. The authors checked the obvious alternatives, reverse psychology and wanting what you can't have, and neither explained the result. They also link it to an older finding in consumer research: when a product claims to do everything, we assume it does each thing a little worse.
Where the research stops
The experiments used products that turn on one clear preference: dark or light roast, firm or soft, spicy or mild. The shoppers already knew what they liked. Whether the effect holds for someone who has never tried coffee is untested. When several benefits compete, as with a smartphone's camera and ease of use, Wallach calls it an open question. If every brand starts doing it, she expects the effect to fade. And the line has to be about preferences. A statement about taste is one thing. A statement about who people are is a different instrument, with different risks.
What it means for your positioning statement
Nobody tested a consultancy. We carry the finding over, and that step is ours, not the authors'. A service is a bundle of attributes, far messier than a roast. The buyer's question is the same, though: is this made for me? Most positioning statements answer it with a "for". For ambitious brands. For growing businesses. Everyone is ambitious, and everyone is growing, so the sentence tells the reader nothing about whether he belongs.
Now try the other direction. A consultancy that writes "we are a poor fit if you need a logo by Friday" has just turned away a type of client it did not want. For the client it did want, the sentence says exactly what the work is. The first group loses interest. The second leans in. The study found both effects.
How to write your own "not for" line
We put the "not for" line to work in our brand positioning workshop. We ask the room to finish one sentence: this is not for. It helps to have an outsider in that room, which is why the best workshops aren't led by insiders. If the sentence comes out vague, such as "not for people who don't value quality", nobody stands on the other side of it, and it excludes no one. A real one names a customer you would turn down, and it costs you something to say. Our bet is that paying that cost in a sentence is cheaper than paying it in months with the wrong client.
Once the line exists, it becomes the first sentence of your messaging. Positioning is the choice, messaging is how you word it, and our messaging framework workshop starts from that choice.
Try it on your own business before you close this page. Finish the sentence "We are not for…". If it won't come, your positioning isn't finished yet.
