How do you sell a proposition to a market that is disinterested or negative about what you’re flogging?

You reveal a point of view that gives them a new insight into the issue.

Bob Brown, leader of the Australian Greens, has discovered the power of numbers.

In a speech to the Canberra Press Club, Bob revealed that the Australian mining industry is 83% owned by offshore investors.

This suddenly casts a new light on a mining tax.

This new tax means that now we aren’t taxing Australian companies but overseas ones.

He went on to support his argument with more facts:

“Some $50 billion reaped from Australia’s mineral resources will be sent overseas as dividends to foreign owners…”

“In the next five years foreign owners will earn about $265 billion from their investments in Australia’s mineral resources.”

“For every dollar of sales, mining companies make an after-tax profit of 26% versus the average across all industries of 8%.”

What the politicians need, isn’t more spin-doctors, opinion polls or one-liners but more marketers who know how to ‘sell’ an idea.

The concept of using facts to bolster an argument has been around forever.

Back in the 50s and 60s Bill Bernbach, sold the new Beetle on facts, wrapped in a blanket of self-deprecating humor.

Many regard ‘Lemon’ as one of the greatest ads of all time and it’s full of facts.

“There are 3,389 men at our Wolfsburg factory with only one job: to inspect Volkswagens at each stage of production. (3,000 Volkswagens are produced daily; there are more inspectors than cars.)

“Final inspection is really something! VW inspectors run each car off the line onto the Funktionsprüfstand (car test stand), tote up 189 check points, gun ahead to the automatic brake stand and say “no” to one VW out of fifty.

Bernbach could have waxed lyrical about build quality of the VW. Except he chose to highlight the negative fact that sometimes a lemon is discovered on the production line, and that’s why you won’t get one.

This was all done at a time when ‘big was beautiful’ in American automotive design. Equally, platitudes and clichés formed the basis of most advertising copy.

If you tell people something they didn’t know, in a persuasive and entertaining way, there is a lot more chance that they will side with your point of view.

Over the last three nights SBS, Australia have aired a TV show called Go Back To Where You Came From.

It has been described by the producers as a social experiment.

Here is a description of the format.

“Go Back To Where You Came from is a world first, three day television event following six ordinary Australians who agree to challenge their preconceived notions about refugees and asylum seekers by embarking on a confronting 25 day journey. Tracing in reverse the journeys that refugees have taken to reach Australia, they travel to some of the most dangerous and desperate corners of the world, with no idea what’s in store for them along the way.”

SBS is Australia’s multicultural TV channel so the audience would have a positive bias towards the subject. However what has been interesting is that over the last three nights the ratings of SBS have skyrocketed, culminating in over 600,000 viewers tuning in last night.

It wasn’t to everyone’s taste, as Channel Ten’s MasterChef Australia had an audience of over 1.5 million.

What is amazing is the interest and sympathy it has created in the subject of asylum seekers.

By placing these six people in the shoes of the refugees they have also opened the eyes of the average viewer to their plight.

So much so that the interest in the program went way beyond our shores and became the most tweeted subject in the world for several hours last night.

Empathy is a very powerful communications tool.

Australians have been shocked by the cruelty that’s being inflicted on animals in Indonesian slaughterhouses.

So much so that domestic red meat sales have dropped.

The meat and livestock industry have always been very careful to separate what we throw on the barbie from how it got there.

The supermarket or butcher has always been the middleman, shielding us from reality.

Now the consumer has been confronted with the reality that your prime porterhouse actually comes from a real animal, not a polystyrene tray.

I must confess that I am a blood-sucking carnivore and even I felt a pang of conscience as I tossed my slab of steak onto the flames the other night.

The interesting fact is that it’s only the butchers and markets feeling the financial pain, not supermarkets.

Does this mean that the perception of supermarket meat as being ‘faux’ animal is still the reality for most people?