Us-versus-them positioning

The pattern

This still is filed under Us-versus-them positioning.

Define

The buyer is invited into a side. The product is what we use. The named other is what we refuse.

Mechanism

Identity contrast. Choosing the offer is choosing a group. The out-group does as much work as the claim.

Verdict

The category is crowded

Why it works

The ostrich wears a worker's overalls and boots and stands in front of smoking factories, so the reader recognises a fellow worker, not an animal. Its head is hidden under a sheet marked MISTAKES while the rest of it stands in plain view, which makes the headline's point without argument: the cover-up hides the mistake only from the one who made it. The bottom line, HIDDEN MISTAKES COST LIVES, then moves the stakes from embarrassment on the shop floor to human lives.

The big idea

A worker who hides his mistakes is an ostrich with its head under the paperwork: he fools only himself, and hidden mistakes cost lives.

Lines from the ad

An Ostrich only THINKS he "Covers Up"

HIDDEN MISTAKES COST LIVES!

MISTAKES

Steal this when

When people hide errors to avoid blame, and ridicule of the hiding, rather than of the error, can make owning up the easier choice.

The emotion

Written to Shame. It makes the Avoid mistake.

It draws the worker who hides errors as an ostrich in overalls with its head under a sheet marked MISTAKES, ridiculing the person, then raises the stakes to HIDDEN MISTAKES COST LIVES.

Guilt heavier than the lapse · Puts the problem on the reader