Aug 29, 2012

Have You Been Brandwashed?

So how many different brands do you have and/or regularly use in your home?

5? 10? 50?

Fact of the matter is: we cannot escape brands. In today's society they're literally everywhere and we need at least some of them in order to live a healthy and comfortable life. Which means it's not a matter of what or how many brands you buy and use - the real question is this: how do you decide between all the different options?

According to Martin Lindstrom, marketing guru turned consumer advocate and author of the book Brandwashed. Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy, the marketing industry knows exactly how to "help" us make that decision time and time again. Two of the worst strategies they employ are marketing to babies (even before they are born!) and inciting fear in the consumer.

In a chapter entitled Buy, Buy Baby, Lindstrom explains how the things we hear while in our mother's wombs can actually have a life-long influence on us, causing us to like music (even as adults) that our mothers listened to while pregnant with us. Marketers know this, of course, and use it to their advantage:
"In one study, Professor Peter Hepper of the Queen's University, Belfast, found that newborn babies will actually show a preference for a TV theme song (the more basic and repetitive the better) that was heard frequently by their mothers during their pregnancies. (...) In other words, the minute we're born, we may already be biologically programmed to like the sounds and music we were exposed to in utero." (p. 12)
So if your mom saw a lot of McDonald's commercials when she was pregnant with you, chances are it makes you feel very good every time you hear their jingle. Making the next step - actually going into one of their restaurants and ordering a burger - that much easier.
But it's not just sounds that can have a lasting influence on unborn babies. Take the example of Kopiko, a Philippine candy brand that started supplying pediatricians and doctors with their candies to give away to pregnant mothers in the maternity wards. A while later, Kopiko introduced a coffee that tasted just like these candies. Its success once it hit the shelves? Phenomenal, especially among children. The same mothers who had enjoyed those candies while pregnant even admitted that they used small doses of the coffee to calm their babies down (which "magically" worked every time)!

But even if your mom was very careful with what she ate, drank and listened to, you're still not safe from these people. They'll get you by scaring you. Here's the author citing an article from the political website Daily Kos in a chapter entitled Peddling Panic and Paranoia:
"When a threat is perceived, the body goes into automatic mode, redirecting blood to certain parts of the body and away from the brain. The respiratory response also decreases the blood supply to the brain, literally making a person unable to think clearly. In other words, the loss of blood to a person's brain can make him or her stupid, literally."(p. 34)
Well, that's good to know, isn't it? :-) And Lindstrom adds: "Clearly, fear is a powerful persuader, and you'd better believe that marketers and advertisers know it and aren't afraid to exploit it to the fullest." (ibid.) So next time you're confronted with the decision to purchase a certain product, why don't you ask yourself this: Do I really need this or am I so freaked out that I think I really need it? ;-)

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