So . . . I had a couple of other topics I was thinking of writing about today (basketball, people's biases and how it affects behaviour) but I'll save those for another day. Instead, I'm going to write about the commercial I just saw on TV (no, television hasn't given me a short attention span at - hey! look at that!). One of the topics that I teach that students tend to have a hard time accepting is that while we all know that we shouldn't trust ads, ads are the source of much of our product information. Exploring this paradox, and a link to a unique ad, after the jump.
There was a scholarly paper a couple of decades back that found that 70% of people consistently a) don't believe ads, b) think that other people believe ads, and c) find ads useful to learn about products. It doesn't take a mathemagician to figure out that (besides that fact that most people think they're shrewder than other people) some people both don't believe ads and find ads useful for product information. So how can this make sense?
We all have some degree of what is called persuasion knowledge (also known as the schemer schema) wherein we are aware that marketers are trying to sell to us and that their motives are far from altruistic. That is why we process ads as we do, with a certain degree of skepticism. At the same time, ads are readily available and provide us a lot of the information we desire without much effort on our part. Researching products, even in this age of instant information, can be time-consuming. Ads make things much easier.
But what most people don't think about is that we don't only learn about product attributes from ads, we also learn which attributes are important. So Volvo isn't only telling us that they are the safest car, but also informing us that safety is an important decision variable. Why do we like fast computers? Because the companies that made fast computers convinced us (instead, we could have been convinced that computing power was most important, and we wouldn't value speed so much). Diet Coke convinced us that a soft drink didn't need to taste good as long as it has just one calorie (had some Diet Coke today - Diet Pepsi is much better).
So back to the ad I saw today. It was for a Listerine product (interesting fact about Listerine - it was once marketed as a floor cleaner but didn't sell, so they invented a term - halitosis - and convinced everyone that bad breath was, well, bad) that claimed to make tooth enamel twice as hard (I'm skeptical, but at least that can be tested) and your teeth two shades whiter. The latter claim is the one I have an issue with. What exactly constitutes a shade of whiteness? The difference between rice and pasta? The difference between Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift? Is there a whiteness institute that has developed the scale?
There are countless other examples. Raisin Bran has been trading for years on the proposition that they have two scoops of raisins in every box. Well, I go to the grocery every week and I notice that they have boxes of different size. Does that mean that the smaller boxes have a greater proportion of raisins, or are scoops measured on a sliding scale? One of my favorites is Lilydale poultry, which is grain-fed. I'm no poultry scientist, but I remain unconvinced that chicken is better tasting because it's grain-fed. But the ads sure want me to believe that, to the point that this guides my decision.
Every product out there has a positioning, a characteristic or set of characteristics that sets them apart from the competition. There are a few such positionings that are over-used, like low price and high quality (which I've written about before). Some companies have positionings that they have built to so as to have value (the aforementioned Volvo-safety connection, for example, Apple and trendiness, Extra and long-lasting gum) and others have to use relatively meaningless qualities (Lilydale chicken, "diamond" shreddies). But hey, if it works, it may be meaningless but still has value. Or misleading - Tim Horton's is proudly Canadian, and uses that in their positioning, even though they're American-owned by Wendy's.
To close, because I'm talking about ads, here's a link to a hilarious ad for a Norwegian talk show with a whole bunch of has-beens. They're not trying to convince you of anything except possibly their continued relevance.
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