[Mind] Games

Advertising: Why Some Ideas Stick and Others Don't

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Have you ever wondered why you can recite a funny commercial word for word after seeing it only once, but try reciting a paragraph of your AP European textbook and you cant even remember past the first sentence? Or, similarly, why everybody in school can remember a rumor upon first hearing it and pass it around with little variation. Even if the rumor does spread and get worse as it goes, the main concept will probably be the same. Why? Because it is interesting.

This book by Chip and Dan Heath is a tool for advertisers. Their goal was to explain ways to make ideas "stickier". They explore why some ideas thrive while others die.

The Kidney Heist:
An urban legend that goes something like this:
    A man is in Atlantic City on business and he is meeting with some clients. He goes to a local bar for a drink before his flight. After he finishes one drink, an attractive woman offers to buy him another and, surprised but flattered, he accepts. After thanking her, he takes a sip and that is the last thing he rememers until he wakes up, lying in a hotel bathtub with his body submerged in ice. He freaks out, trying to figure out where he is and how in the world he arrived there. Then he sees a note that says: DONT MOVE. CALL 911. There is a cell phone resting next to the bath tub, so he calls 911, like the note said. Oddly enough, the operator seemed familiar with this situation. She tells the man to reach behind him and carefully check if there is a tub protruding from his lower back. And sure enough, there was. The operator proceeds to tell him not to panic, but that one of his kidneys has been harvested. There is an organization of organ thieves operating in this city and they got him. She tells him paramedics are on the way and advises him not to move until they get there.
 
This was an example given in Made to Stick. It is one of the most famous urban legends in circulation. Odds are, if you heard that, took an hour nap and then told the story to a friend, you could remember it almost perfectly. You would probably leave out the minor details, but the big picture would be correct. However if you were to read this passage:
     "Comprehensive community building naturally lends itself to a return-on-investment rationale that can be modeled, drawing on existing practice. [A] factor constraining the flow of resources to CCIs is that funders must often resort to targeting or categorical requirements in grant making to ensure accountabiliity".
OK. So we can't even understand that after reading it through a couple of times. How would anybody be able to read that just once, put the book down for an hour and then recite it word for word? Not many people could. The problem with this is, the false urban legend is the thing that circulates successfully, not the very real and relevant topic. The Heath brothers wanted to know if there was a way to make a true, relevant idea circulate as successfully as a false one. They came up with six principles that anyone who wants to make an idea "stick" in someones head should follow. The mnemonic device is SUCCES These principles are used by advertisers to target consumers all over the world.

Principle 1: SIMPLICITY
         An idea will be most successful if the person putting it out there can master the art of exclusion. In other words, an idea has to be stripped down to its core with no unnecessary information. For example, if a lawyer argues 10 great points, odds are a jury won't remember most of them later. So, the best ideas are simple and profound at the same time. Treat others the way you want to be treated. The Golden Rule is the ultimate model of this concept because it is short but has clearly profound enough to have become a lifelong guideline.

Principle 2: UNEXPECTEDNESS
        
Surpassing people's expectations by surprising them is a sure way to grab their attention. That's the easy part. The emotion of surprise increases alertness and focus. The hard part is getting keeping their attention because as we all know, surprise wears off. So, the goal of advertisers is to create interest and curiosity. You want people to wonder and actually care. You want to "open gaps" in people's knowledge and then fill those gaps. This will feed their curiosity and encourage them to listen to the advertisement or commerical.

Principle 3: CONCRETENESS
        
This is a good tactic that is used to make ideas clear. Due to the fact that our brain is wired to remember concrete data, it is better to explain ideas in terms of human actions instead of meaningless statements. For example, fables are stories that explain human nature. That's why they have stood the test of time; they are relatable. In other words, abstract concepts are harder to understand and remember. There is a fable about a fox who tries again and again to reach some grapes but fails because they are too high up. He turns his nose up in the air and says "They were probably sour anyway" and walks away. The moral of the story: It is easy to hate what you can't have. For human beings, a fox dissing some grapes is simply more concrete and easier to understnad than an abstract idea about human morale.

Principle 4: CREDIBILITY
      
For an idea to successful, people have to believe it. So, if advertisers make an idea seem fake or unreal people are less likely to listen. Obvious credible sources would be our parents and our friends. Our religious beliefs. Most authorities. These are sources that people believe in. However, advertisers have to find a way to make ideas believeable without telling everyone's moms to endorse the product. Statistics are a good source of credibility. If you show the people evidence that the idea really works, this means that the idea or product has been successful in the past for other people. This will make them more curious and draw them in. Believing the advertisement will make them more likely to listen to it and act on it.

Principle 5: EMOTIONS
          It can be difficult to get people to care about certain ideas. Advertisers try to play on people's emotions and make them actually feel something. One example is an announcement about the negative health affects of movie popcorn. The message could have said that a movie popcorn contains 37 grams of fat, but that doesn't really put it in perspective for movie-goers. They aren't going to pay attention to a peice of data. Instead, the message said: "A medium sized butter popcorn at a typical neighborhood movie theater contains more arter-clogging fat than a bacon  and eggs breakfast, a Big Mac and fries for lunch and a steak dinner with all the trimmings .... combined!" Now, doesn't that sond disgusting? Movie-goers thought so too. After that story was featured on CBS, NBC, ABC and CNN, there was an extreme decrease in the amount of popcorn sold at movie theaters. The story created an emotion of disgust and it successfully stuck in the people's brains. In this case, advertising was used for positive, healthy manipulation.

Principle 6: STORIES
        Telling stories of success can be helpful in making a person act on an idea. If a company is trying to advertise a charity event, in the commercial, they can show a clip of previous events or fundraisers that made a difference. If people see that something was successful in the past, it will make them remember it and want to get involved or maybe donate money. The final S in SUCCES even embodies the rest of the principles in it. Stories are almost always Concrete. The good ones will have Emotional and Unexpected elements. Any good story teller would make the listern believe it was Credible. The hardest part of effectively using a story is making sure it is Simple and reflects the core idea. You can't just tell a great story if it has nothing to do with the topic.

By using these six principles, advertisers can more successfully manipulate a consumer's mind. They can make sure that an advertisement, commercial or message enters your brain and doesn't leave. These six principles also work for presentations. In this way, advertisers can play games with our minds and make us more likely to buy a product.

Campaigns That Last

Here is a surprising fact: Diamonds have only been the most  popular choice for engagement rings since 1947. You would think that this would be a centuries old tradition, right? However, De Beers, an advertisement company are the ones who are responsible for the diamond engagement ring. The slogan "Diamonds are forever" compared the hardness and stability of diamonds with the idea of permanent love. Before this campaign, other gems like opals, rubies and sapphires were considered more unusual than the diamond.

This slogan has influenced the media in many ways including being featured in songs and films. "Diamonds are Forever" is a popular song by Kanye West. Also, Diamonds are Forever was a film produced in 1971 as part of the James Bond series.
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Believe it or not, but Santa Claus is also an advertising campaign that became popular and just stuck. Coca Cola is responsible for creating the modern image of Santa Claus, as an old man in the big red suit and white beard. In the 1930's, they launched a campaign that featured the pictures seen below. Before this time, the exact appearance of Santa Claus was left up to individual interpretation. Over the years however, this image created by Haddon Sundblom for the Coca Cola company is the one that survived. The ad pictured jolly old Santa Claus taking a break from his present delivering for a refreshing sip of Coca Cola. These ads targeted little children mostly, because if they saw Santa Claus drinking Coke then they definitely would want to also.   

"The pause that refreshes"
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These two campaigns have been used in America for years now. Their impact shows the effect that clever advertisements can have on consumers. In this way, advertisers have been successful in manipulating us to buy things by relating the product to important aspects of our lives like love (the diamonds) and religion (Santa).

Subliminal Advertising 

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Subliminal advertising is a form of subliminal seduction, which is a form of mind manipulation. Subliminal means something that the conscious mind is not able to perceive. However, although Subliminal messages are not noticed directly by the viewer, they are seen with the subconscious mind and can trigger multiple emotions.  When used in the form of advertisement, subliminal  seduction is the use of images and sounds at a speed or frequency that does not allow us to perceive them consciously but that we perceive unconsciously. In this way, advertisers are able to influence the consumers' responses without their being conscious of it. One example is a marketing message like "Drink Pepsi" flashed on a screen on a screen so briefly that a person cannot perceive it, yet the viewer is manipulated by this hidden message and they begin to crave Pepsi. 


Subliminal advertising is frequently used in movie theaters to attract consumers. Throughout the course of a movie messages such as "Hungry? Eat Popcorn" are flashed on the screen for .003 seconds. The results of this hidden mind manipulation? The sales of popcorn increased by an impressive fifty eight percent. In audio forms of subliminal advertising the message is played at a volume which isn't able to be heard or recorded backwards in a process called back-masking. Stores use a more obvious form of subliminal seduction. Store owners know that playing music with a tempo faster than the human heartbeat causes shoppers to shop quickly and therefore buy less. The slower the beat, the more time shoppers will take, and the greater the chances are that they'll buy something. It has been argued that subliminal advertisements are more powerful than ordinary advertisements because they are able to find a way around critical functions of the conscious mind.