Relationship Marketing for Men and Women

1. Straight Guys, Dating, and Ad Encoding

The essence of advertising is to convey information, which requires the use of symbols. In semiotic theory, a typical symbol process includes a sender, symbolic information, and a receiver.

For example, when a girl on a date says, "It's a bit cold," her intention is "I want you to hold me," but "it's cold" is the symbol she uses. This message can only be accurately interpreted in the right context.

However, straight guys often take this information too literally and simply think it's cold. This makes the message fail. The same goes for advertising.

The sender has an intention and designs a symbol text to convey it—that's the ad we see. But for the ad to work, the audience must receive and correctly interpret the message. If the message is delivered but not correctly understood, it's ineffective.

Therefore, ads should avoid using symbols with special meanings that aren’t universally understood. Instead, they should use symbols that the broadest audience can grasp—this makes the ad most effective.

2. Why Give a Diamond Ring for Marriage?

Trust is the hardest part of advertising. So, ads are filled with symbols proving their trustworthiness, like celebrity endorsements, institutional backings, and sales figures.

For self-media (influencers) to gain trust, they often need to provide free content for a long period, sometimes a year or two, to earn followers' trust. Only then is selling products or courses more effective. This initial period of free content is the "proof of work" for gaining followers' trust.

Why give a diamond ring for marriage, and the bigger, the better? Because the man needs to gain the woman's trust and prove his love, which can’t be verified easily. So, he’s willing to spend a lot.

It's precisely because diamonds are "useless" and expensive that they prove the man's sincerity.

3. Logical Engineers Can't Soothe Angry Girlfriends, Just Like PR Can’t Calm Angry Publics

You had a movie date with your girlfriend but you were late. Why were you late? Because there was an accident on the ring road, and you couldn’t drive through or take another route.

Your girlfriend is mad, and so are you because you have a valid reason for being late. She says, "You’re late, you don’t care about me at all!"

You say, "I do care, but there was traffic due to an accident. I couldn’t change routes, abandon the car, or walk through it. I had to wait."

She says, "I don’t want to hear it, you don’t understand me at all!"

Indeed, you don’t understand her. The more you use logical explanations, the bigger the rift between you two. Because she wants your attitude, not your reasoning.

When a company faces negative publicity, they shouldn't rush to explain (unless there's concrete evidence). Instead, they should sincerely apologize. The public has an information gap and doesn’t care much about why the negative event happened; they care about your attitude, not the facts.

4. Bar Pickups and Ad PR

You meet a girl in a bar. Going up to her and saying you’re rich and handsome is sales. Paying the DJ to announce to the whole bar that you’re rich and handsome is advertising. Getting the bar owner to chat with the girl and say you’re rich, handsome, and reliable is PR.

When the girl knows you're rich and handsome and approaches you herself, that’s brand attraction.

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