# The Psychology of Commercials ## Метаданные - **Канал:** Nick Kolenda - **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfmhwBDnYTg ## Содержание ### [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfmhwBDnYTg) Segment 1 (00:00 - 05:00) A lot of commercials seem pretty weird, right? So why is that? And do those commercials actually work? That's what I'll explain in this video. I'm going to break down some commercials that seem pretty weird on the surface but actually have a deeper psychology that's trying to influence you and what's actually going on. So let's dive in. The first principle is linguistic fluency. Suppose that you're buying body wash. Now, a lot of people have a go-to brand that they buy every single time. And they're not going to switch. Yet, a lot of people don't have a strong brand attachment. And they just choose whatever option feels right at the time. Now, that gut reaction might seem unimportant. But that choice is occurring for millions of people across the globe. Every single day. So those crucial seconds determine a very large source of revenue for businesses. So brands naturally want to become that final winner of that arbitrary choice. And so how do they do that? Well for one, commercials. They increase the activation of those brands in people's minds. And I'll explain the exact mechanism later, but for now one tactic to accomplish that involves linguistic repetitions. Essentially just repeating the same information. With a lazy approach that strategy becomes very obvious. Head on. Apply directly to the forehead. the... You get the idea. But with some creativity, those repetitions can fly under your radar. So in this commercial for Captain Morgan everybody is addressing a captain by saying... well... captain. Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain. In a 30-second timeslot Captain Morgan manages to say "Captain" - their brand - a total of 31 times. And you see similar strategies with other mass market goods, like Old Spice. Old... Spice... Old... Spice. Literally just screaming the brand name. So here's what's happening. Both commercials are increasing the activation for those linguistic names triggering a concept known as fluency. So when you're making that final gut reaction choice the brand name with the most activation will pop into your mind more easily That fluency and that ease with which it comes to mind it makes it seem as though something feels right about that brand and you conclude that it must be that you want to buy that brand. And so that's the key mechanism behind fluency. Now, just a point of commentary before moving on. Those repetitions involve two types of fluency. Conceptual fluency and phonological fluency. Conceptual fluency involves the semantic concepts themselves. So after those repetitions, the concepts of Captain Morgan and Old Spice will enter your mind more easily. With phonological fluency, the mere combinations of sounds will be easier to pronounce and they'll feel more familiar, even if you don't necessarily activate the underlying concepts themselves. Now that distinction might seem unimportant, but I'll explain why it matters. I'm assuming that both brands are trying to increase fluency in general but if we distinguish between these two types of fluency we'll notice that those repetitions might actually decrease conceptual fluency. There's a principle in psychology. It's not too common, but it's well supported. It's called semantic satiation. If you repeat a word many times in a row, you temporarily inhibit the conceptual meaning of that word. There was a study where people repeated the word anger 30 times in a row. And afterward, they had trouble identifying angry faces. Because they inhibited that conceptual meaning through those repetitions they literally couldn't perceive anger. And there's an interesting string of studies, but the main point is that Captain Morgan might be shooting themselves in the foot. Their overabundance of repetitions might actually decrease the conceptual fluency for Captain Morgan. In fact, their commercial coincidentally has the same number of repetitions in studies on semantic satiation. Now, that said, that inhibition would only occur in the moments immediately afterward so it probably doesn't matter anyway, but let's just stick with this train of thought. Assuming that conceptual fluency is off the table would we still experience this effect with phonological fluency. And the answer is yes. With phonological fluency, it doesn't matter whether you're experiencing semantic satiation because the effect is coming from the mere articulation and pronunciation of those sounds. So it doesn't matter whether you can't access the underlying concept. However, one final tidbit before moving on. Because phonological fluency is coming from the mere articulation and pronunciation, you don't experience fluency if your mouth is occupied whether you're talking to somebody or even chewing gum. When your mouth is occupied you don't experience what's called "muscular subvocalization. " And because you don't experience that ease and feeling of fluency you have no feelings to misattribute toward those brands. So that's why you need that feeling of subvocalization. Sascha Topolinski is the key researcher behind that phenomenon of subvocalization. And he's published some really interesting studies. I'll link to them below But that's linguistic fluency. The second principle is nonconscious mimicry. So to understand this effect, you need to know two things. First, physiological responses can trigger corresponding emotions. ### [5:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfmhwBDnYTg&t=300s) Segment 2 (05:00 - 10:00) So if you feel happy you're going to smile. However, the reverse is true. If you smile, then that physiological response produces feelings of happiness. And that same effect also happens for learned or cultural gestures as well like head nodding. People tested headphones by nodding their head up and down or shaking their head side to side and the people who nodded their head up and down showed stronger agreement to a news broadcast that was being played over the headphones. The second thing you need to know is the chameleon effect. So if you're talking to somebody, you automatically feel an urge to mimic their nonverbal behavior. So if they're leaning to the side, you feel an urge to lean to the side. And now we can combine those two principles. So if you're talking to somebody while nodding your head then that person will experience a nonconscious urge to nod their head and through that physiological response of nodding their head they'll show stronger agreement with whatever message you're trying to convey. Now, I describe that concept in my book Methods of Persuasion, but I really just included it for the theoretical explanation. I didn't expect any business to actually implement this on a wider scale. I mean, when you think about it, what business would just show a commercial with people just randomly nodding their head, right? Okay, so I'll give Xfinity the benefit of the doubt and I'll assume that their commercial is purely coincidental and that there is no mischievous intent behind their part but literally the whole commercial is filled with a family repeatedly nodding their head. Almost every scene just has the same exact motor movements. Can we just back up? Literally, this one scene has 11 people randomly nodding their head like is that even dancing, like c'mon, really! So the commercial finally ends with the whole family nodding their head while Xfinity displays their key benefits of simple, easy, awesome. And at this point, if you're nodding your head because of that mimicry, you'll activate a mindset of agreement and you will perceive those benefits and the Xfinity product to be more favorable. Now again, all of this is probably coincidental I wouldn't expect any mischievous intent behind this commercial. But if this is the purpose and intent of this commercial then I would say this is a prime example - no pun intended - of a business applying cognitive research in a manipulative and deceptive way. And I'm against these types of applications. Well, what applications would be acceptable or ethical? So let's enter the third principle. Top-down Attention. When you have an active goal, you experience what's called top-down attention. you can perceive stimuli that are related to that goal while blocking out stimuli that are unrelated to that goal. So if I show you a group of red X's and green Os you can focus on those red X's while letting the green O's kind of fade into the background. And it's the same reason why, if you're busy counting basketball passes, you'll fail to see a giant gorilla walk through the middle of the screen. It's the same principle. Now, because of that principle we can easily block out advertisements and commercials from entering our attention. So how our marketers trying to break through that top-down attention? Well, a lot of them try to do that by increasing the saliency of a message By making it louder, brighter, or anything else to make it stand out more. And that seems like the common-sense approach, but it actually backfires. Let's say that you're trying to attract more attention to a banner advertisement by increasing the saturation of the color. When you do that, you're making it easier for people to classify that stimulus as an unrelated advertisement. So because they can identify it as unrelated more easily they can more easily block it from entering their attention. So paradoxically, by making a stimulus more noticeable you can actually make it less noticeable. The clever marketers are the ones who instead of increasing the saliency of a message will transform their message so that it resembles the goals and expectations of people. So here's an example. One of my guilty pleasures that I don't usually tell people is that sometimes I watch wrestling. I trust that you'll keep this between us, right? So what goal do people have during a commercial? Well, they're waiting for the show to come back, right? In a common segment for WWE, they usually have a wrestler named Elias who comes out and plays the guitar for people. And one time, during a commercial break, I saw the beginning of that segment. And so naturally, I reoriented my attention back to the TV. And then I come to find that wait... this isn't WWE... this is a commercial for Snickers. They're just incorporating Elias into the commercial. And stickers has a series of other commercials where they incorporate other wrestlers as well. With wrestling, people are actively monitoring for instances of wrestling. If a commercial has the appearance of wrestling it's more likely to break through their top-down attention. Plus, these commercials are better from a viewer standpoint. A lot of the times, commercials are a chore where we need to wait until marketers are done spewing their message at us. And so with these commercials that inject the message into the show itself ### [10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfmhwBDnYTg&t=600s) Segment 3 (10:00 - 13:00) they have a lot more relevance and they're a lot more entertaining. Now this approach can become deceptive and go too far. If you're driving in the car listening to the radio it's not too uncommon to hear an advertisement contain the sound of a horn. [horn sound with voiceover] "At the end of the day, everybody wants to be home for Jeopardy. " While you're driving, the sound of a horn is part of your top-down attention. So whenever you hear that sound you automatically orient your attention to find the source of where that sound is coming from. And lo and behold, the marketer just accomplished their goal by fixating your attention on that advertisement. A similar example, yet a little more acceptable is this commercial from Amazon. They played this commercial during the end of Survivor. And during that final commercial break, survivor usually comes back with a preview for the next episode. So during that break, viewers are actively monitoring for the end of Survivor. And so this scene appears for the ending of Survivor and suddenly you orient your attention back to the TV but then you keep watching and you realize that wait... this is just a commercial for Amazon Fire TV. And so in all these examples, you had a goal where you were looking for a red X. And right now marketers, try to capture your attention by increasing the saturation of a green O which not only doesn't work, but usually backfires because it's easier for you to block out. but we're starting to see a trend in marketing where marketers are starting to realize this and they're starting to instead break through your top-down attention by resembling that red X... so that goal that you currently have. And you know, I started this section with rosy expectations for this principle but after this whole explanation, I'm starting to realize this principle has a lot of room for deception and so I'm starting to have second thoughts about it but I guess we'll see where it goes. Anyway, last principle. Triggers and spreading activation. So if you watch the Superbowl in 2018 then you probably saw this commercial for Tide. Now I thought their strategy was pretty obvious, but after reading some of the commentary online, it seemed like a lot of people missed the key purpose and strategy behind this commercial. So Tide created this commercial in order to get the biggest bang for their buck from that absurdly expensive time slot in the Super Bowl. And here's how they did it. They start with some ambiguous scenes that are very stereotypical ["Yeah, just a typical Super Bowl car ad, right? ] And they leave you guessing as to what the commercial is actually advertising which is another psychological hook, but that's beside the point. Eventually they reveal that the commercial is advertising Tide. ["It's a Tide ad"] Because everybody is wearing clean clothes. ["What makes it a Tide ad? "] ["There are no stains. "] And at this point, they proceed to other stereotypes for diamonds, sodas, razors and many other scenes that are very common and stereotypical in many commercials. Finally, by the end of the commercial, they end with this crucial message. ["So, does this make every Super Bowl ad a Tide ad? "] And that's where the cleverness comes into play. Throughout the commercial, Tide created a strategic network of associations. Now, I explain the concept of spreading activation in another video, but essentially, Tide created a connection between their commercial and their brand and every other commercial during the Super Bowl. And because of those connections, every time that you were exposed or watched a commercial during the Super Bowl that connection triggered spreading activation back to the original Tide commercial. So Tide was able to take their short time slot, a mere 60 seconds and extend the impact of that commercial across the entire duration of the Super Bowl so every time that you watched a commercial, it triggered you to think back to Tide. So well played, Tide. So that was some psychology behind commercials. If you want to learn more psychology, you can subscribe to my channel or you can get a copy of my book, Methods of Persuasion --- *Источник: https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/21649*