A Song for Rapaille

Overall, I enjoyed watching The Persuaders. Even though I thought the content was a little outdated (since Song aircrafts have already been absorbed by Delta), it was still interesting to learn how marketing plays such an integral part in almost every industry, including politics. It’s funny how the wording of a certain topic can make citizens gravitate towards voting for or against a certain candidate.

One of the more interesting parts of the documentary was the interview with Dr. Rapaille, which I have to talk about for this blog assignment anyway. Basically, Dr. Rapaille has a three stage process that ultimately discovers what a consumer expects from a certain type of product, even if the product differs from company to company. For example, the documentary examined Dr. Rapaille’s work with the word luxury, and what people associated with that word.

His three stage psychic process includes (1) past reason (2) through emotion (3) to the primal core.

The first stage, past reason, Rapaille just asks people bluntly what their opinions are regarding a certain topic. At this point, people can answer easily and quickly. They want to show how intelligent they are, and are very happy because they can answer all of his questions.

After a short break, the second stage, through emotion, occurs. During this stage, Rapaille asks his participants to tell him a short story as if he was a 5 year old from another planet. This stage is important because people don’t try to be logical or intelligent—they must speak in the most basic vocabulary to ensure that a 5 year old can understand them.

After another short break, participants visit their primal cores, where all of a consumer’s purchase decisions really exist. Rapaille removes all of the chairs from the room at this point so that participants can relax in a room filled with very little light. Participants are forced to go back to the very first time they went through an experience dealing with the topic at hand, due to their environment. According to Rapaille, if these “reptilian hot buttons”, the innate reactions of consumers to certain words, are discovered, companies can use this information to position their product to be successful because they will know what consumers respond positively to. Ultimately, I never learned what ideas are associated with "luxury" since that information is valuable to various companies, which was disappointing.




I enjoyed learning about Rapaille’s findings dealing with his process in general. Essentially, he said he learned that if companies discover successful properties through consumers’ primal cores, this information can really help a company. The reason I found this finding so interesting is because I instantly linked it back to another concept we discussed a few weeks ago from Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink. We talked about how consumers’ first impressions can’t be trusted because they aren’t experts. Similarly, Rapaille states that during the first stage of his process, consumers’ answers can’t be trusted because they are first responses to situations. Instead, Rapaille travels further into participants’ minds to discover their real desires. I found it really enlightening that Rapaille’s and Gladwell’s concepts fit together.

Friends! Gladwell (above) and Rapaille (below)

Learning about Song Airlines was actually really pleasant. I thought the way the documentary chronicled the progression of Song’s creation through its introduction and thereafter was pretty informative and in-depth.

In case you haven’t heard of Song, it was a subsidiary of Delta Airlines that was aiming to compete with the more hip, low cost carriers in the industry. Song executives wanted to create a new type of culture around their airline by focusing on a different target market: women. Song researched women’s desires when it came to airlines and used the information to make Song attractive by offering low fares, organic food, and various entertainment options on board. In addition to that, Song relayed its culture in almost every way possible—“Song” was considered an adjective that meant "hip" or "cool," used to describe employees. Also, every item related to Song was characterized with pastel colors that would be appealing to women.

One of Song Airline's airplanes

I really thought Song’s ideas on how to enhance the customer experience were pretty great, but that could be because I’m a member of their target market as a young woman. I may not have my own disposable income just yet, but I think Song’s greatest asset was reinforcing its culture in multiple ways so every potential consumer knew what Song meant. I enjoyed watching Song’s launch party at the beginning of the documentary because it looked entertaining and exciting—a great way to get people’s attention.

Unfortunately, there were downsides to Song. Although the company had great ideas, execution of those ideas didn’t go very smoothly. I think the company could have improved the way it first created awareness for itself by improving its ads, which were somewhat confusing and misleading. They never showed airplanes or mentioned travel, which left many potential users in the dark. Also, Song’s parent company, Delta, did not end up doing so well in the long run so all of Song’s airplanes were absorbed by Delta eventually.