Storytelling. Relationships. Connections. Emotion.
I’m guessing that upon reading those words, the first few things to pop into your head likely weren’t advertisements. But that may change, at least if advertisers have their way. Take this ad, for example:
Beside the somewhat unsettling nature of that child’s precocious delivery and accent, the ad is effective at telling the story of a young boy’s idolization of his father and how playing with Legos has bolstered their relationship.
Or how about this ad:
The gentle twinkling of the piano keys adds emotional weight to intersecting images of a mother’s love. We witness these mothers carry their children through life, protecting them and teaching them. Their persistent love and care allows these children to become Olympic athletes. It’s heartwarming, isn’t it? I particularly liked the documentary feel the ad has, with the handheld camera work providing a cinéma vérité feel. Now, let’s unpack what’s going on here.
Writing for Psychology Today, Peter Noel Murray provides an illuminating look at the influences that determine what we buy and how we make decisions. There is one resounding answer to this question: Emotion. Essentially, when we need to make a decision, we draw upon previous related experiences as well as the underlying emotions they produced in order to assign value to our choices. Emotion is so important to the process, in fact, that a study found that individuals whose synaptic connection between thought and emotion has been disrupted experience great difficulty in making decisions. They can go through the process of gathering information and conceiving alternate choices, but they are unable to make a final decision because they lack the ability to feel one way or another about their options.
Murray’s article goes one step further and reports that functional MRI neuro-imagery demonstrates that consumers eschew information (facts and figures) and instead primarily utilize emotions (feelings and experiences) when making purchasing decisions. Furthermore, emotional response to an advertisement has a greater effect on a consumer’s intent to buy than the actual content of the ad. In effect, advertisements tap into our shared human experiences and manipulate us into buying Pampers over Huggies. The message is clear: we are better, more caring parents if we provide our children with P&G products. But it doesn’t stop there.
Through advertising, brands develop “personality characteristics” that are indistinguishable in our sensory-addled brains to those same characteristics we perceive in other people. These characteristics are communicated to us through packaging, buzzwords and imagery. Similar to how we relate to certain people better than others, so too do we relate to particular marketing tactics better than others. These ads provide a narrative to the products that allow us to relate and connect to them in an ostensibly meaningful way.
Beyond selling us a product, these ads are selling us an identity. I would presume that I’m not the only person who is riddled with insecurities and feels a sense of relief when my needs and desires are acknowledged and nurtured. Our identities are enmeshed in every facet of our lives: Our clothes, cars, cell phones and opinions are all meticulously compiled to present our “ideal selves” to the world. Advertisers are quite aware of this and have become successful at cluing us in to our desires through subtle suggestion.
In fact, there’s a new thing that you may or may not have heard about that’s also going to change the way we are marketed to: The Internet of Things (“IoT”). I consulted a little-known print/online magazine called Wired to sort out just what-the-heck this Internet of Things thing is. Here’s what it had to say:
"The Internet of Things revolves around increased machine-to-machine communication; it’s built on cloud computing and networks of data-gathering sensors; it’s mobile, virtual, and instantaneous connection; and they say it’s going to make everything in our lives from streetlights to seaports 'smart.'"
“IoT” is slated to be a real game-changer in almost every aspect of your life. For example, let’s say you buy a pair of Nike running shoes that have a sensor chip built into them. You then download the corresponding app for your smart watch or smart phone and take a run. The information from the sensor in your shoes (such as how fast you’re running, for how long, and your typical route) is being transmitted to the app in real time and being stored in the cloud. So, now that a communication is taking place between these two devices, the data can be used to help improve your running. Maybe you have a tendency to pronate while you run and you are at risk of a muscle tear? Or, maybe your usual route is blocked off because there’s a craft fair taking up the sidewalks? The app then provides you with the answer: An alternate path based on other user data that is equal in distance to your usual run and allows you to keep up with your regiment. Sounds amazing, doesn’t it?
Well, that is one of the more straightforward and helpful ways in which the “IoT” is going to change our lives. The subtext to this, of course, is that intimate and specific data about you and your interests will be made available to just about any interested party. So while your wonderful running app and intelligent shoes are providing you with a new and invigorating spin on exercise, with the potential of the “IoT,” it could soon be possible that a new route is deliberately devised for you so that you run past a billboard for a specific product of which the mining of your data has suggested you would likely be interested in purchasing.
Because the “IoT” possesses the potential to improve the safety and quality of our lives, so too does it possess the ability for advertisers to hone a finer point on their marketing tools. This, in tandem with an emotional approach, could prove to be a massively successful new tactic to sell us stuff we probably don’t need.
Hey, let’s face it, data is the future. With the amount of personal information that we willingly disclose through social media and other forums, it shouldn’t be shocking to learn that it’s also being collected elsewhere without our express consent. Although who’s to know for sure, I never read the user agreement. I’ll tell you one thing though, indignation certainly ain’t gonna change anything. Data collection will only become more pervasive and subtle.
The “IoT” allows companies to track usage and satisfaction in real time, thereby putting product refinement and functionality at the forefront of the user experience. In other words: Maybe this will temper the onslaught of cheap crap currently on offer and provide a shot-in-the-arm for quality control. Either way, modern life will continue to change and evolve. Before you know it we will hardly ever have to think about anything; our machines will be smart for us. What a relief.
As our access to entertainment diversifies and becomes more compartmentalized and tailored to our specific tastes, you can bet that ads will follow suit. They will become even more accurate and effective at appealing to the aspects we feel make us different rather than that which makes us the same. Though we are, by and large, approximately equal in what we desire out of life (love, happiness, sex), it is the few variances in taste that makes us individuals and composes our identities. The “IoT” is going to take full advantage of that. Advertisers have an unprecedented ability to engage with consumers on a more direct level. So, get used to the idea that a commercial could one day make you cry.
