Playing With Numbers

According to SAP,  its users are  32 percent more profitable than companies that don't use their solution.  Or, are they? Take a closer look (something SAP hopes you won't do).

SAP's new ad campaign copy never claims that their software is the underlying reason for better profitability.

By stating two things in the same sentence, SAP clearly wants us to make a connection between the two. But they never claim cause/effect.  In other words, the two exist together, but not because of each other.

SAP of course, is confident you'll make the connection. It's not unlike putting 9/11 and Iraq in the same sentence.

I wonder what other co-existing conditions we could dig up about SAP shops and the German software firm. Maybe SAP users drive German cars? Or maybe they have more accounting fraud cases than other companies? Who knows? Maybe SAP users have had more layoffs than others.

My point: customers are smarter than this. When I've pointed this out to my clients they have all noticed that SAP was careful not to claim their software drove the profits.

As marketers, we tell stories with numbers. We quantify markets to make them look favorable, or we slice them differently to make them look like losers. We state two things in the same sentence, knowing there is necessarily no cause/effect, but we do it anyway.

Before you try SAP's tactic, do your homework or consider the ethics.