Human mind is one the most complex structure ever known. The fact that it has so many interconnections and has evolved over a period of more than 250,000 years gives more credence to the notion that it still remains one of the least understood topics. However, certain features of how a brain acts and functions has been studied and evaluated by various scientists. This understanding of how a brain reacts to certain stimuli and how it processes the millions of information it receives on a daily basis, can help individuals and companies market their products and also develop new products that instantly capture the minds of the customers.
Following examples talks about few such instances.
1. This example is about one of the most common techniques used by marketers for their products.
Read this aloud — Nirma, washing powder Nirma.
Did you read it in the tone of the famous jingle? The odds are that the tune in which the jingle was written came to your mind the instant you read the words. Music and tunes are one of the things that come most easily to our brain and stay the longest.
How many of us remember the song we heard when we were kids. When was the last time you heard the Nirma jingle, probably quite a few years back, still you remember it vividly. Do you remember the first sentence that your professor or boss said this morning? Maybe you would if he sang.
This is because the brain processes songs and tunes easily and memorises it faster than spoken words or sentences. And once that tune has made its place in your subconscious mind, every time you hear the start of it, the chances are you will recall exactly what you heard long back. The jingle industry is based largely on this concept. By using these technique marketers imprint their products in the subconscious mind of the customers which generate a much greater pull and recall for the product.
2. Slowing down — If you are flipping through a series of familiar images (say of cats) which change after exact 1 second, and you come across an unfamiliar or unexpected image, the chances are that you will feel that image stayed on the screen for a longer period of time than the others.
For example consider that there are 4 similar images of cats which change after exact one second and then an image of a model drinking soda which too stays on the screen for exact one second followed by the same cat images.
80% of people tested feel that the image with the model stayed on the screen for almost as long as 3 to 4 seconds. This is called the Oddball effect. When the mind sees something out of the ordinary, brain devotes more resources to decoding and analysing it, hence giving the impression that it lasted longer. Using this marketer can make audiences focus on certain specific images they want to highlight.
To illustrate, imagine row full of billboards with logo of a particular company, say Airtel. While driving through the area if you see a single billboard of a different company with different looking logo, you are more likely to recall that particular company.
3. The following examples explain how brain takes decisions and how it can be manipulated by marketers and advertisers for their benefit.
Imagine you can chose between two ice cream parlours. One offers chocolate vanilla and strawberry ice creams
And other parlour offers many other choices. Which shop would you pick to go to and how much time will you take to make that decision. Probably most of you would pick the one with more options instantly.Now, consider that the other store offers the following ice creams as depicted in the below image. Which ice cream would you pick to eat and how much time will you take to decide it ?
In most cases people take more time to decide which flavour to choose and some even get frustrated at the fact that they can’t decide. The reason why the first decision was easy and it did not take much time is that there are two ways by which brain takes decisions. One is automatically without much thinking based on the pre-conceived notions and other is after more deliberate thinking. Marketers have to constantly address the concerns that arise out of this. One such issue is the problem called post purchase cognitive dissonance. While ultimately you might have chosen a flavour of ice cream but even as you are eating it, you might be wondering “I should have taken that other one”. The problem of choice gets even more exaggerated in today’s scenario of multiple online vendors with different pricing and choice of products. Resulting in even greater post purchase dissonance. Even though companies use tools like filters, sort, categorising to engage the customer better, most companies loose users often due to lack of providing tailor made content.
Marketers also exploit the automatic response of a brain by various techniques. For example imagine you went to a movie theatre with your friend and you want to order popcorn. There are three sizes available along with the prices as shown below –
Small is for Rs. 90 Medium for Rs 130 and Large for Rs 140
They are pretty expensive but if you see carefully, the Large tub is only Rs.10 more than the medium. Which popcorn do you choose? The researchers guess that you would choose the ‘Large’ tub. It is quite logical decision. If you did so, read the following carefully.
Now imagine you had the following choices instead of the above
Small is for Rs. 90 and Large is for Rs 140
Which popcorn would you choose?
If here you chose the small one then you fall in the category of 84% of the people tested by the researchers of this study and you were conveniently manipulated by them in the earlier image.
See the both options once again. What is the difference between the two? The only difference is that the first option has medium popcorn for Rs. 130 which anyways most of you wouldn’t have opted for.
Why is it then that the presence of the medium popcorn made you chose large and its absence made you chose the small one?
This is called the decoy effect. The medium popcorn was the decoy. By putting it there, it gave you a frame for comparison and gave your brain added information. With this added information the brain jumps to the quick conclusion using the automated portion of the decision making as it feels paying Rs.10 extra is decent enough when you are getting the larger tub.
This technique is used by marketers in a variety of places. Comparing two things is one of the major decision making criteria. When you compare you become more sure and confident of your decision.
Hence by providing a decoy, a means to give you a comparison frame of reference, marketers can trick your mind. The same is true for other disciplines too. For example in finance you need two years of data to compare and arrive at essential ratios. Comparison is one of the most important tools a brain uses for decision making, and marketers tend to exploit and make most of it.
4. Persuasion — Advertisers, marketers and politicians in common use persuasion techniques to make you do what they want without it being explicit.
Branding a product to the subconscious portion of the brain gives a better chance to marketers to sell their products. This is called priming. Priming is subtle cues that alter your response without you knowing it. That is because brain is always looking for shortcuts and trying to decide quickly. Every detail of the message in marketing impacts the customer’s brain.
For e.g. Example colour red is believed to drive you to act hungry. Hence various restaurants and food chains use that as their primary colour. Most of you would have heard about subliminal advertising — advertising to your subconscious. Such techniques are used to give the customers the feel that they are in control and it is their decision to act in the way they are acting, but in certain cases they are being governed by their subconscious mind, to which companies market their products.
An example of this is the Expert fallacy. One of its concepts is that the type of clothes a person wears has an impact on whether you will be persuaded by him or not. For example a person who is wearing a suit and has an attendant holding a camera could certainly fool you into thinking that he is a reporter even if he is speaking unbelievable things and you haven’t verified his id.
5. Another common technique used by marketers is to market to the mind of their specific customers, Male or Female.
The brain of males and females differ in certain aspects. Not to get into controversies I will limit the description to the following example.Guys have a look at the following image and count the number of shades of red you can identify and keep the count to yourself.
Now ask your girl-friend/girlfriend to see the same image and count how many she sees.
The chances are that you saw three or four shades whereas females almost instantly see as many as 5 to 7 shades of red. This fact is used by marketers to market different products to the different sexes.
All above instances demonstrate that the knowledge of how human brain functions can be an important aspect in marketing and advertising to your customers. With the advances in technology and the unravelling of more truths about the brain, more techniques can be in the making.
*Authored by COO of foOfys Solutions, Mrinal Thakur. This blog has been faithfully reproduced from the Author’s personal blog.
**The images, references and examples have been taken from National Geographic’s tv series. Some of the images have been procured from Freepik and google search. Use of Brand names(Nirma & Airtel) and Brand owned Image (Baskin Robins) is for reference and representational purposes only.
