How would Dominic Cummings sell your product?

Dominic Cummings is a brilliant salesman. As an ardent remoaner, I hate to admit it, but the way he sold Brexit was marketing genius. First he identified a market segment that had previously been ignored by anti-EU Conservatives. Then he came up with a killer three-word marketing slogan: “Take back control.” Finally, the Leave side used this slogan repeatedly and relentlessly without really explaining what it meant.

Next time you review your marketing strategy, why not try asking how Dominic Cummings would sell your product? It’s a humorous but interesting exercise. imagine if you had Dominic Cummings on your marketing team. What if he used the same approach to selling your product as he used to sell Brexit? Would it work? What are the risks involved in taking that approach?

The key to this strategy is to distil your unique selling proposition into a killer three-word marketing slogan. ‘Take back control’ effectively combined not just a sense of a positive future, but also suggested returning to a glorious past. It also conveyed a sense of rightful ownership that had been violated. It thus tapped into the frustration that many voters felt with the status quo and their fury about being let down by the political class.

“Take back control” is also an imperative. It’s just just a call to action – it’s a command. Sometimes people don’t like being told what to do – but sometimes they do. What might happen if you took a more assertive approach to your marketing copy?

Last but not least, Dominic Cummings enforced message discipline. To some, it seemed as if the Leave campaign didn’t bother to elaborate on their simple slogan, or explain what it meant. They just repeated it, over and over again. Do your communications have the same discipline? 

Next time you’re working on your communications strategy, try out the Dominic Cummings game. At the very least you’ll inject a bit of humour into your meeting. And humour is a great way to liberate your creativity.