Discoveries in the field of neuroscience allow advertisers and marketers to get into our heads more and more thoroughly. Moreover, their ways of influencing the buyer are so simple that they never cease to amaze. How to avoid impulsive spending? A few tips from psychologist David Lewis.
It’s very simple: just evoke certain emotions in us, use hypnotic words and pleasant pictures in advertising, slightly change the color, lighting and music in the store, and we are ready to make an (unnecessary) purchase. Psychologist David Lewis talks about such methods of manipulation. It also tells you how to deal with them. Here are some interesting facts from his book (1).
Products that bring us closer to the ideal
To evoke a sense of inferiority and show a saving way out is a method that advertisers have been using for a long time. “Tell people that the world is dangerous, that they lack this particular car, and in general their teeth are not white enough, and then offer a magic tool – your product, and you will leave them no choice,” says American marketer Jonah Sachs ). Advertising images encourage you to think that this is the only way you will achieve the respect of colleagues and the love of loved ones. Marketers turn expensive services of dentists, cosmetologists and plastic surgeons from an unpleasant necessity into our need and strongest desire. It is enough to imagine these procedures as a way to change the appearance for the better and increase self-esteem, and a person will not spare money for a panacea. However, in recent years, selling through inferiority has been supplanted by another method: marketing of the future is a message that makes the buyer a hero, reminds him of how great his potential is.
We treat shopping as fun
Often we do not just go shopping, but we want to pass the time, dispel boredom or get rid of loneliness, we hope to have fun and enjoy. That is why shopping centers almost everywhere have turned into shopping and entertainment centers (with pleasant lighting, music and decor), and there are so many retail shops in airports: a person waiting for his flight will certainly go into one of them. As a rule, the passenger needs communication with a friendly seller more than the purchase itself, but still buys an unnecessary thing in gratitude for the attention paid to him. Another situation conducive to pointless purchases is sightseeing trips and walks in theme parks. During such a walk, we feel ourselves engaged in an interesting game, in which the purchase of numerous souvenirs is not a thoughtless waste of money, but an obligatory ritual and an additional source of fun.
Bargaining increases the value of the product
The buyer, whom the seller meets and agrees to bargain, experiences an emotional and physical uplift, his brain is in an excited state. And after the transaction, he appreciates his acquisition much more than if he received it without much effort. This phenomenon is called “attribution error”: we often transfer our emotional state from the situation that caused it to the object that is nearby. Some sellers are aware of this mechanism, so they specifically create circumstances in which a person experiences excitement, strong feelings. Feeling joy and pride from a small victory over the seller, the consumer attributes his high spirits to the desire to have this product, even if before that he doubted the need to purchase.
Read more:
- Buyer’s Paradox
Pose of the purchaser
Modern experiments and observations of psychologists have made it possible to determine exactly how movements and postures affect the mood of the buyer. Here are just three tricks (of course, there are many more) that help sell:
1. Encouraging the consumer to nod frequently will greatly increase their desire to buy the product (for example, displaying a product line vertically instead of horizontally). If he has to turn his head to the side, the purchase will become less likely. The unconscious connection between nods and positive emotions goes back to infancy. Charles Darwin watched children raise and lower their heads in search of their mother’s breasts and shake their heads from side to side when they were full. This also explains why, in most cultures, nodding means agreement, and turning the head from side to side means disagreement.
2. Consumers leaning back in an easy chair are more flexible in their negotiation than those sitting in an uncomfortable chair. Even a relatively small change in posture can affect how much attention consumers pay to a story about the product being offered and how well they remember the words addressed to them. In one study, participants listened to information with their heads turned to the right or left (2). Those who listened with their heads turned to the right paid more attention to what was said and remembered what was said more accurately than those who turned their heads to the left.
3. Simply manipulating the postures of strength (for example, legs wide apart, hands on the belt) and weakness (arms crossed on the chest, head bowed) is enough to significantly change the psychological state of a person. For example, if a character in a television ad adopts a power pose, they will be perceived as overconfident, even aggressive. But the one who took the pose of weakness will be considered more relaxed and friendly (3).
1. David Lewis, American neuropsychologist, founder of the independent research consulting firm Mindlab International. He was one of the first to apply the methods of neuroscience in the study of the mental activity of buyers, for which he was called the “father of neuromarketing.” His book Neuromarketing in Action was published by Mann, Ivanov and Ferber (2015).
2. J. Ackerman et al. «Incidental haptic sensations influence social judgments and decisions», Science, 328(5986), 2010.
3. D. Carney et al. «Power posing: Brief nonverbal displays affect neuroendocrine
levels and risk tolerance», Psychological Science, 21(1), 2010.
How to deal with unnecessary spending?
David Lewis gives some advice to overly impulsive buyers.
1. You are more likely to fall prey to covert persuasion techniques when you are in a certain frame of mind. So think twice before opening your wallet if:
– you are in a bad mood or you are bored and you are trying to kill time at the airport or while waiting for a meeting;
– you are excited, for example, after a movie or an exciting excursion.
2. Don’t forget that our desire to buy is triggered by subtle means of persuasion such as scents, lighting changes, color and music that you hardly notice. In a large supermarket or mall, you are inside an elaborate machine specially made to sell.
3. When you feel an overwhelming desire to buy something, imagine a pink elephant sinking into a bowl of blue cream. Psychologists call such vivid, fantastical images thought-stoppers: since the conscious mind can only hold one thought at a time, the pink elephant prevents it from moving on to something else, such as a decision to make an unnecessary purchase. A few seconds is enough to distract and reconsider the situation.
4. Any seller is afraid to hear from the buyer: “I’ll think about it.” Deliberately not thinking about the purchase, you may not make it at all.