The marketing campaign for a moisturizer admits a negative to establish authority and credibility, something retail florists should consider.

There is a tradition in marketing of admitting to a negative as a way of establishing authority and credibility right before making the strongest claim.

One commonly cited example is Buckley's cough syrup, which has long used the line "It tastes awful (admitting an inescapable negative). And it works (their most important claim)".

Too often in the flower business we want to argue subjectives. The "tastes awful" part above is subjective, but it is a feeling most people share so the campaign chooses to own it and use it to establish their authority.

There are are parallels in the flower business. Many consumers feel that flowers don't last. Like taste that is largely subjective. How long is long enough? If we're in the business we want to argue that they do last as long, and possibly longer than can be expected.

That would be like Buckley's arguing that their medicine tastes as good as could possibly be expected given the ingredients in it. But they don't do that because they know they can't win – if someone thinks something tastes bad there is no point trying to tell them otherwise.

So Buckley's uses it to their advantage. They concede a point they were going to lose (taste) to win a bigger argument (that their product is effective).

This post looks at a recent campaign for Lubriderm that uses the same principle, and at how that same principal might be used to create a more compelling argument for buying flowers.