Human recorder

A few days ago, while looking at a group of children, I noticed an interesting phenomenon. Today I will write a few words about it.

Advertisements, who doesn’t know them. They surround us from all sides, leaving a permanent mark in our psyche encouraging us to consume a product or use someone’s service. No wonder, then, that people are reacting more and more aggressively to successive offers appearing in the press or on television.

What is surprising is the zeal with which ad creators try to convey product information to their “victims.” The latest ads are already appearing literally everywhere, starting with our phones and ending in the proverbial refrigerator. But what if they advertised their products in a slightly more sophisticated way and played straight from our friends? However, you don’t need any space-age technologies to do this. You can approach the problem a bit more subtly.

But before I go into how this can be done, let’s try to analyze the course of a sample advertising campaign. Professional agencies probably have their own scenarios and breakdowns, but I will present my idea of it. It consists of several consecutive parts.

The first is to familiarize the customer with the brand. Even before we are aware of what product the logo is about, marketers try to evoke positive associations at the very sight of it. This will make the new product seem familiar to us, and therefore more approachable than if it were shown to us without any introduction.

The next stage is “proper advertising.” Companies, publish wherever they can songs and catchy advertising slogans just for us to hammer them into our consciousness. Once this is done the final stage, i.e. repetition, takes place.

In this part the “victim” already has the given tune in his subconscious and easily associates it with the product. So it is enough to present the customer with a given stimulus from time to time, through which he will remember our offer.

When it comes to giving people information about a product, it is difficult, at least at the initial stage, to rely solely on associations. Without providing external information and a description of the product, people’s minds are unable to connect the brand in question with the perceived stimulus. Fortunately, at a later stage of an advertising campaign, this is already as possible.

Once a product is associated with a certain pattern that can be easily duplicated, its mere reminder is enough to set the innocent consumer’s thoughts on the right track. Thus, people’s brains are programmed to produce needs in response to innocent signals, such as a melody or an interesting advertising slogan. These mechanisms can be transmitted through a variety of sources, from radio broadcasts to elevator tunes, but the most interesting of all mediums is man himself.

It’s interesting that when we play a modern game on our phones, we notice lots of advertising interludes and incentives to make microtransactions, and we don’t realize how many times information about the product comes to us from our own charges. Although we don’t always realize what the slogan is about, they remind us of the existence of a product we would otherwise forget about.

It seems that many mechanisms seemingly related to the media can be observed in the surrounding world. Probably some of them are easier, others are more difficult to notice. In each it is worth looking at seemingly familiar phenomena from a different angle to see something new.

And you, what are your views on advertising lurking at us from all sides? Write in the comments.