World Leading Rollout Momentum

650 people a minute
39 000 people an hour
460 000 people every day

These are the numbers to grab the attention of a government ad with blanket airing across England’s radio output at the moment.

The idea being perhaps to ensure the wavering tin-foil hatters go get their “free” (first-of-two) coronavirus jab.

The fourth line CTA;

Join the millions already vaccinated

The figures are astonishing.

An undoubted British triumph. The private sector led initiative the envy of the world. English enterprise and organisation showing the way.

If I can leave the anti-big government thrust, doomed to underperform socialist health system embarrassment and general flag-waving pride aside, it is interesting to note that this campaign activates the opposite of atomisation to get across its point.

A ‘nudge’ of its kind too.

So many already sorted, now take your natural turn. Follow the herd, my sheep.

Atomisation was always a powerful tool of the solution seller.

When married with the ability to turn CapEx into OpEx, it became the irresistible force of monthly subscriptions and manageable run-rate business that has seen ‘product’ become ‘service’ in almost every nook of B2B today.

There’s even a recent [21 July 2020] HBR podcast on how to emulate, if you’ve somehow not yet done so.

Rather than break a seemingly scary number down to its smallest and least scary granular component, the ad here starts off small and increases to an almost unimaginable greater total.

I’ve used similar business case pitches in my time.

For instance, in the early days of ‘computerisation’. Tackling the operative that insists they are doing no harm by taking the quick two minutes to search for any morsel of data by hand. Despite the liberating benefit of anyone else now being able to do the same – and much more – in a single click. Seeking to quantify how the sheer weight of time lost is so alarming. Forcing executive action right away. And that’s before the even louder nail of all the extra wonders now open being hammered home.

The figures used above also appear conservative. Always a bonus for a business case projection.

The highest daily jab volume in the UK so far cited was 874,000 set on 20 March. So perhaps a more ‘averaged’ amount was deliberately chosen for broadcast.

Then the daily number used is 11.8-times that of the hourly one. Strange, given the minute tally exactly matches as one-sixtieth of the hourly one.

Still, the fact you can even quibble around the edges can add such weight to the central argument. It’s worth remembering that any attempted de-compartmentalisation of top-lines can have multiple drill-downs. Your message being, query them however you like, yet the eventual conclusion remains inescapable.

Never be afraid to allow your own seemingly small hourly number grow, blossom or explode into a eye-popping figure over the course of a prospect’s year.