Steak and Eggs and Mashed Potatoes: The Transitive Fallacy and How it Impacts Your Marketing Approaches

If you’ve been in the marketing world long enough, you’ve likely encountered the “if A works with B, and B works with C, then A must work with C” assumption. For example, “SEO works for almost all attorneys, and some attorneys are mergers and acquisitions attorneys, then SEO should work for most M and A law firms.” Alas, SEO is not especially great for M&A, and from talking to many marketers in this space for years, it is seldom a part of the marketing mix.

This logical misstep is what philosophers call the transitive fallacy, and it’s surprisingly common in comprehensive marketing campaigns. Think about a perfectly cooked steak (rare or medium-rare, of course) served with creamy mashed potatoes—an exquisite combination. Then, consider the classic Steak and Eggs—a nice filet seared to perfection alongside the richness of egg yolks, a divine enterprise for us gastronomes hours before noon.

Now imagine those same mashed potatoes served with eggs for breakfast. Something feels off, doesn’t it? I’ll be frank, the idea of mashed potatoes sitting close to fried eggs makes my stomach turn. Yet, those eggs would pair beautifully with crispy hash browns—another potato preparation. The humble potato works wonderfully with both steak and eggs, but in dramatically different forms.

I’m sorry if you’re reading this while hungry, a vegetarian, or both, but this means something here. So, let’s get into it.

The Transitive Fallacy in Marketing

In professional services marketing, the transitive fallacy manifests when marketers assume that tactics working across similar industries will automatically work together in a comprehensive campaign. For example:

Corporate legal marketing works well with LinkedIn. LinkedIn works well for dental practices. Therefore, corporate legal marketing approaches should work perfectly for dental practices.

But that’s where things fall apart. The missing context creates a disconnect. Legal content emphasizing authority and technical expertise often feels cold and clinical in dental marketing, where emotional reassurance is paramount.

This type of cross-context error, according to studies, occurs because marketers often focus on surface-level similarities between channels or audiences while overlooking fundamental differences in psychological needs and consumption contexts. This is why marketing agencies that have only a few verticals they surface are so critical in how they can craft content, demographic analysis, and messaging. And give further consideration to specialties, like workers’ compensation within personal injury.

The Marketing Transformation Imperative

For professional service providers, this reveals a profound truth: it’s not just about what your content is but also about the form it takes for specific contexts. The raw substance of your expertise remains unchanged, but its presentation must undergo complete metamorphosis depending on the platform and audience.

Consider a dental practice’s educational content about preventative care: As detailed, text-heavy explanations, it might repel social media audiences. But transformed into quick visual tips with bright graphics, the same information becomes irresistible.

A law firm’s case studies follow the same principle: Dense procedural narratives create dissonance in quick-consumption channels. The same cases reborn as human-centered stories with emotional hooks suddenly resonate.

Harvard Business Review’s research on content transformation across channels demonstrates that successful brands don’t simply port content across platforms—they fundamentally reimagine it for each unique context while maintaining core value propositions.

The Textural Psychology of Marketing

The magic happens in the psychological response to different formats. Monotonous content creates an experience that feels overwhelming and unfocused, much like how uniform, technical content creates mental fatigue.

Effective marketing provides the crucial counterpoint that creates completeness, just as visual breaks, succinct headers, and varied content formats create the necessary contrast for effective marketing.

This wisdom teaches us that transformation isn’t superficial; it’s fundamental to creating the right psychological response in your audience, even when the core substance remains unchanged.

The Journal of Consumer Psychology has explored this concept through numerous studies on processing fluency—the ease with which people process information. Their research consistently shows that content matching its context in terms of complexity, tone, and format creates significantly higher engagement and recall. You’ve probably heard this all before – “write for a 5^th grader” is often the case universally. For more professional businesses, I would venture to say an 11th grader, and if you’re B2B, and your ideal client is in a similar social status and education level to you (or greater), you know what to do from there.

The Complete Incompatibility Analysis

Let’s break down why some marketing combinations simply don’t work, despite each element being effective in isolation:

Contextual Dissonance

When combining marketing channels, we often encounter what might be called “redundant softness”—multiple elements occupying the same space without providing necessary contrast. For instance, dense legal explanations paired with lengthy case studies create a monotonous experience without relief, and lawyers oftentimes will still say they want lawyers writing their content in on Criminal Defense and Personal Injury websites!

Contextual dissonance—when marketing elements clash with their surrounding environment—can reduce message effectiveness by up to 40%. This occurs because people have deep-seated expectations about how information should be presented in different contexts.

Without contrast, they create a potential “information overload” without relief, triggering what psychologists might call “cognitive fatigue.” When content needs to be accessible and digestible, we need to avoid going heavy on the jargon within the first couple of paragraphs. Perhaps our more cerebral readers will continue beyond that, and we can continue to increase our retinue of academic sources and citations to create deeper context, but we have to be considerate of the audience we’re trying to get in front of.

Our minds crave the interplay of different formats and approaches—the visual relief of infographics provides the necessary counterpoint that makes detailed analysis shine. There has never been a better time than now to include other content formats within blogs and pages such as this one, and I apologize in advance for stating this fact and not implementing it alongside.

Temporal/Cultural Context

Marketing elements are often firmly coded in specific contexts. Corporate speak is coded as B2B (business-to-business) communication, while casual tones signal B2C (business-to-consumer). Mixing these without transformation creates cognitive dissonance.

Medium expectations matter too. Content designed for in-depth reading can feel heavy and inappropriate for quick-consumption channels like social media.

Through decades of marketing traditions, we’ve been conditioned to expect certain formats in certain contexts. According to Stanford research, these contextual expectations can be so powerful that they override objective quality assessments.

Visual Appeal Factors

This is a bonus section, but color monotony matters. The consistent blue-gray palette of corporate materials alongside text-heavy educational content creates a visually bland experience without appetizing contrast. The word “greige” gets thrown around with quite a bit of disdain nowadays, so based on the average consumer sentiment I see firsthand, I forgo using this within a palette too much.

Structural issues arise, too. Social media content needs a strong visual hierarchy to be appealing; text-heavy formats provide no visual foundation or separation.

Real-World Examples

The marketing landscape is littered with examples of transitive fallacy failures:

1. When Pepsi attempted to transfer its success with young consumers to a “clear cola” product (Crystal Pepsi), it failed spectacularly despite logical assumptions about transparency trends appealing to health-conscious consumers. The contextual disconnect between “cola” and “clear” created an insurmountable cognitive dissonance.
2. Many luxury fashion brands have struggled with social media despite success in print and in-store experiences. Their carefully curated, exclusive messaging often falls flat in social contexts where authenticity and immediate connection are expected. Research demonstrates that luxury brands must fundamentally transform their communication styles for social contexts, not merely port over their traditional messaging.
3. B2B companies frequently fail when directly applying their LinkedIn content strategies to platforms like Instagram. The formal, data-heavy approach that works for professional networking creates significant friction on visually driven platforms designed for emotional connection.

Steak and eggs and potatoes may be a stretch when equating the true nature (and drawbacks) of transitive fallacies in your marketing efforts and even the day to day, but analogies like this still encourage us to take a step back and look at the inherent attributes and qualities of what we have and do and draw parallels we may not have seen otherwise.

Looking Forward to the Rest of 2025 at Market My Market

At Market My Market, we understand that every marketing tactic must be tailored for its specific context. Missteps like the transitive fallacy can quietly undercut campaigns, even when each component seems effective on its own. We’ve worked for years refining how professional service providers present their content, always aiming to match message with medium. That’s why our marketing strategies don’t just blend techniques, they transform them to fit your audience’s mindset and expectations.

Our approach isn’t one-size-fits-all. From law firms needing to translate dense case studies into compelling stories to dentists sharing care tips through vibrant social graphics, we’ve created winning strategies that meet each client where they are. Our team combines decades of experience, real-time reporting, and deeply customized 30-60-90-day plans. To see how we may be able to transform your marketing results, call us at (800) 997-7336 or reach out through our contact form.