In the book Hidden Persuasion, explores 33 tactics advertisers use while advertising their products. These hidden persuasions are a driving force behind advertising world’s efficiency. The author, Marc Andrews says:
“People think that their decisions and choices are most of the time made consciously and rational, relating to their wishes, interests and motivations,”
“Fact is, that most of our decisions in daily life are made on an unconscious level, which means we are quite vulnerable to persuasion attempts which effect our unconsciousness.”
Anthropomorphism
The more human something seems the more we are drawn to it.
Trustworthiness
Every face you see in an ad is carefully selected based on lots of criteria. One of those things? How trustworthy that person looks. We rely on visual cues to unconsciously figure out how we feel about something, and it turns out some people just look more trustworthy than others. Beyond obvious signifiers like a creepy mustache, things like facial width-to-height ratio (the distance between the two extremes of the cheekbones and the distance from the upper lip to the eyebrows) can clue us in to how trustworthy a person is. People with higher faces are perceived as more trustworthy than those with wide faces, as are brown eyes versus blue.
Scarcity
If you’ve ever bought airline tickets on Kayak, you’ve undoubtedly seen the little alert telling you “Only 1 ticket left at this price!” Nothing kicks you into buying mode like the fear of paying more for the same product or missing out on it altogether.
Turns out, FOMO extends to buying stuff, too. Andrews says this is partially because it’s been ingrained in our minds that the expensive things tend to be scarce (gold, diamonds). Scarcity also suggests that other people like the product (hello, social proof). Andrews writes that the last reason scarcity technique works so well is that it reminds us that our freedom of choice will soon be gone.
Social Proof
Among the most effective tactics advertisers can use is tapping into our social insecurities. It makes sense; we go to doctors, hairstylists and restaurants based on our friends’ recommendations, and we’re just ask likely to buy something because it’s gotten the stamp of approval by someone we know and admire.
“The more people who approve of something, the more likely we are to like it, too” says Andrews. Just look at Facebook and its snowball “liking” effect. Even saying something as simple as “Nine out of 10 people choose Tide” or “The majority of people prefer Wonder Bread” works exceptionally to influence human behavior, Andrews adds. So much for individuality.
Suggested sex appeal
The most prevalent social influence technique advertisers use is sex appeal. Whether it’s an ad for men’s cologne or a diet product, the suggestion that a product will better your chances of having sex subtly creates a favorable association with that product in consumers’ brains, even if they are unaware of it. Ranging from the symbolic to the overt, sexual suggestiveness in advertising goes back to ads for saloons in the 19th century.
Reverse psychology
A technique largely tied in with acknowledging resistance, involves persuading someone to do what you want by pretending not to want it or by pretending to want something else. The principle is closely related to reactance theory, or the idea that people who feel their control is being taken away will take it back through defiance. For example, Patagonia’s cheeky full-page New York Times ad that declared “Don’t buy this jacket” helped launch its common threads initiative to reduce the company’s carbon footprint and encourage consumers to do the same. In this way, Patagonia used the ad to sell itself as a brand, and that brand is indeed, still in the business of selling jackets.
Misleading visuals
Techniques for presenting food can include spraying grapes with hairspray to create an illusion of freshness, using mashed potatoes in place of ice cream, and coloring hamburgers with brown shoe polish. Photoshopping models, a practice that has become standard, may not seem particularly dangerous, but the American Medical Association claims this practice seriously threatens the health of adolescents.
You may think you notice but this might surprise you.
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