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The power of a brand to turn us into puppets.
I am a staunch individualist! I have never been one to follow trends, the crowd, or allow myself to be brainwashed by advertising. At least that’s how I see myself. This makes the following story all that more interesting.
One morning in the recent past, I was to meet a friend for coffee early at Pete’s Coffee. I got there a bit before my friend and was eager to get some strong coffee in me. We have a toddler and an infant at home and the lack of sleep has turned my wife and I into zombies who function on strong coffee. I approached the counter and ordered a tall latte with an extra shot of espresso. The barista looked funny at me and repeated my order back to me – “a medium latte with extra shot.” I repeated back to him – “yes … a tall latte” He corrected me again, “you mean MEDIUM.”
At this point my mind cleared up a bit and I realized, much to my amazement, that I was not at Starbucks but at Pete’s. It must have felt insulting to the Pete’s barista that I was confusing their establishment with the competition. I was slightly embarrassed and motivated to figure out what had just gone on.
The Psychologist in me figured things out. You see, extensive research in Behavioral Science has shown that many times we move around the world on auto pilot, driven by habit. For example, have you ever headed for place A, fell deep in thought about something, and ended up at place B, just because place B is the one you usually go to? A recent study reported by David Rock, shows that “humans are on autopilot nearly half of the time.”
What had happened to me was that during one of my (sleep deprived) autopilot mode episodes, I was under the influence of a powerful brand – Starbucks. I had used the Starbucks lingo at Pete’s Coffee! Moreover, this was the lingo that I had stubbornly refused to use during my first visits to Starbucks!
To me, that is an excellent example of how effective brands get under our skin – they pull he strings while we are asleep at the wheel … Scary?
Danger Lampost 10+
So funny to read after reading through these comments.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7949440/English-professor-thrown-out-of-Starbucks-after-objecting-to-corporate-language.html
Opening sentence:
"Lynne Rosenthal was ejected by three police officers after clashing with a barista about the firm’s ordering rules, which require customers to adopt marketing speak that many find artificial and cloying."
Alex Genov
Danger Lampost 10+
Is all of language an extrinsic association between the words and the objects to which they refer?
Does not the brand serve the useful function of helping set the customer's expectations regarding the products? For example, are the words "tall" or "vente" as redefined by Starbucks useful for precisely describing the size of coffee, as opposed to the relative words "medium" and "large" which do not provide such specificity? Does that not make these brand words useful and turn these from extrinsic to intrinsic.?
I think that's the part I'm confused about.
Alex Genov
If you want to go for clarity, small, medium, large gives a pretty good sense of what is what, especially when they are listed side by side. Using a mixture of English (tall) and Italian (grande and vente) to describe size does not help me much, it confuses me. But it sounds very exotic and worth $5 for a cup of coffee :)
Carol Halbrook Hargett
Alex Genov
Carol Halbrook Hargett
Julian Blanco 30+
Looks like we are on the same page here.
What's the next "mind parasite" to get rid off?
How do you protect your kid from the media?
Regards!
JB
Ps I assume you have kids due to your comment on kids shows
Lochan Naidoo
Sarah Appel
Alex Genov
elizabeth muncey 10+
Greg McEachern
Alex Genov
Abhishek Singh
elizabeth muncey 10+
Julian Blanco 30+
My two cents here: I agree with you that some forms of advertising and some companies will get you to be part of their club (or even worst, sect) but there is choice, you can choose not to be impacted.
I have being living without a TV for the past 10 years, and very happy.
The city I live these days (Sao Paulo) has banned billboards.
I do surf the web, meet people, go to shopping malls, etc, but minimize the AD exposure as much as I can.
Why? Not because I want to avoid buying something I don't need, but because I value having my mind (and as much space as possible) focused on things I care about and thinking independently.
I believe this strategy is better and "cheaper" than having to constantly rationalize advertising to defend yourself.
Regards!
JB
Alex Genov
Julian Blanco 30+
Regards!
JB
Colleen Steen 500+
I started a practice years ago of not watching TV in the summer, so from April to October, there is no TV. If something important is happening in our world, I would turn it on for news, and otherwise, it is simply off....that is a choice. Now that I have a computer, turning the tv on for news isn't an issue. In the winter months, when days are shorter, I watch news, public tv, documentaries, etc. in the evening, when/if I choose to do so.
Alex, if you REALLY wish you could give up TV, how about trying it for short periods of time? One day at first? Two days? A weekend? Get some good books, make plans to spend time with family and friends, do projects you always wanted to do and felt you didn't have time?
Robert Beckman
-The "clean laundry" smell that most detergents have as an additive actually isn't what clean laundry smells like - there really is no smell to clean laundry. Its used to evoke a psychological response in us.
-Humans tend to overvalue things they create - that's why when you buy a build it yourself piece of furniture from IKEA you tend to not want to get rid of it, or will try to sell it for more than its worth. Some companies can cut manufacturing/packaging costs by exploiting this.
-We also have positive (or negative) reactions to brand names themselves. Studies by Dan Ariely have shown that people react differently to the same object if they're told it comes from a different manufacturer. For instance, buying and wearing a counterfeit accessory is going to make you less honest in general, assuming you think its a counterfeit.
Mitch SMith 50+
Makers of instant coffee also inject coffee-smell into the container so that when you open the seal you get a coffee-smell hit - I think they call it "grab-gas".
Greg McEachern
Alex Genov
Austin Rinehart
Sophisticated advertising lays in the subconscious things that directly affect the sale, moral / political / economic point of view, etc.
The strength of the brand is particularly strong in countries with multiple networks-monopolists.
elizabeth muncey 10+
Mitch SMith 50+
Mamals have sleep .. many other creatures do not.
We have to actively turn off our consciousness as part of the large brain strategy .. But I tend to think that the quality of consciousness is exactly the same - even in bacteria.
I am not that focused on growth apart from how changes occur in the developing human - e.g. the synaptic cull caused by puberty hormones.
I think we are a long way off integrating concepts such as "chakras" - if the basis demonstrable causality is not complete, then it is perilous to spend too much time developing areas of knowledge that have no observed line of integration - i.e. one must not build a house on an assumption - it might turn out to be a chasm. Sure, there's something there with chakras .. but lets wait for the bridge before we say we are on the other side and make foundationless assertions about what they are. Just accumulate observations for now - when the bridge gets there, the observations will snap-into place by themselves.
Pommy women have more downy fluff on their faces - not burned off by high UV ;) There is a certain excellence in people from the British isles, but also a certain cruelty. Grace mixed in with gruesome.
elizabeth muncey 10+
Mitch SMith 50+
http://www.adyashanti.org/index.php?file=listenonline
Start at the top.
Also explore the site - there's a lot there for you.
Don't listen to the words - listen to teh silences ;)
elizabeth muncey 10+
Mitch SMith 50+
Ideas come.
Do they come from inside or outside?
All sounds, like birdsong on a sea of silence.
Listen to the birds, then listen to the silence.
elizabeth muncey 10+
Wade Crum
Thank goodness I landed a few sales jobs in my career. It helps to see the mechanisms of influence rather clearly. (insert evil laugh here).
Wanted to add: We are our own brand and we are selling it every day.
Yubal Masalker 200+
IMO, the incident described in the title above is very interesting & instructive, but it's not so good example for illustrating this weakness. Because as you say, usually you are aware about the brands' possible bad influence on you and you do not allow them to affect your decisions. And now, due to your recent experience, you are even aware of the sub-conscious effects the brands create within us in their sophisticated ways. So in my opinion, people who are almost constantly aware of the brands' influence upon us and do not allow themselves to turn into puppets, have no real reason to feel scared, even if they occasionally go through experiences like the one you passed.
Alex Genov
Yubal Masalker 200+
The evolutionary drive itself is NOT a mental weakness. But continuously becoming a victim of that drive IS a mental weakness.
Krisztián Pintér 200+
Yubal Masalker 200+
My feeling is that perhaps you haven't read the entire first comment of mine. I wrote there that the (mental) weakness I am talking about cannot be attributed to people like you, but on the contrary. Please read again the second paragraph there.
Scott Armstrong 50+
i think brand-peddlers know this and deliberately do it - notorious for this are junk food and junk drink companies. these money-lovers have no qualms about pushing their harmful products, pointing their advertising guns at kids and then have the gall to say that if kids are unhealthy then it's bad parenting.
as a cynical old man, my default setting is to be immediately suspicious and disbelieving of all advertising.
Greg McEachern
Kyle Kozma 500+
I think simply put, we've become an assiocation of the things that surround us. Just as we're culture bound listeners, we're brand-bound individuals. It may be easier to switch brands due to conflicting or changing values, but generally we love to speak like the brands we (know)/love.
Alex Genov
walter crockett
Alex Genov
Jan Seidler
One has map, describing a territory of land. The 'map' IS NOT the 'territory'.
A very descriptive analysis into the language that mostly demagoguery and advertisement thrives in. A form of subliminal suggestion. Very important to know about the semantics of language.
Alex Genov
Mitch SMith 50+
You are not talking about "brands". You are talking about something that brands are a subset of.
The superset is "extrinsic association".
In this regard, brands are the same as the alphabet, words, numbers and esoteric symbols.
Extrinsic associations are defined by: non-causal objects that lie external to the body and physical causality.
One can only acquire extrinsics through training - the extrinsic is demonstrated to occur concurrently with a demonstrated object or causality. For instance, the utterence "run" might be associated with the flight response. After sufficient "training" the utterence will become synaptically attached to the mirror neuron that governs the physical sequence of flight (fleance?). So, when sufficiently trained, the utterence alone is enough to release adrenalin, raise heartbeat, sweating etc. because it mutualy co-fires with the real behaviour.
Consider the action: "pick-up-cup". This is a trained physical sequence that begins as a micro-managed task and ends up as a "macro" which needs only be invoked by a macro execute request - the sequence becomes sublimated into what we call "the subconscious". Kinda like "set and forget". Interestingly, such "macros' seem to be associated with mirror motor-neurons. Motor neurons are observed to "fire" in 2 modes - simulate and execute. They demonstrate some kind of connection to the proto-self(state-monitor of the internal body - aka "feelings").
Once an extrinsic is established, then it can acrete further associations with other extrinsics.
The language set applied to a "brand" will become part of this association network and can become sublimated as a macro with its own causal map.
You are correct in equating this with the "drive from A to B" macro.
Advertisers are very well aware of this. Whether consciously or subconsciously - a skilled advertiser will seek to sublimate your behaviour with favourable results for their product. I would say that big producers have sufficient funds for it
Alex Genov
Mitch SMith 50+
However, the root dynamic is what constitutes a "self" and how it goes about "self organising".
And then look at what happens when a buch of "selfs" encounter each other.
One might view it as a surface on a growing sphere. If anything modulates the inverse-square relation of that surface to its radius, it will produce fractal patterns on the surface - chaotic, if the modulation is "just so" as it seems to be in our universe.
That, I suppose is a "computational" concept. It's an over-simplification, but we see it as the increasing complexity of evolution - and the emergent properties of that complexity.
Neural adaptive topology is a long way down the evolutionary emergence chain.
Since we humans happen to be part of that link, it is cogent to us.
Danger Lampost 10+
I was confused about something you said and was hoping you could clarify? How does brand advertising cause extrinsic association? For example, in Alex's original question for this topic, what was the non-causal object external to the body, that is being associated with what other thing, in this case?
Mitch SMith 50+
The brand mark forms the first associative link to the product - the product is intrinsic becuase it has a demonstrable causal relationship to the subject .. you can pick it up or use it in some fashion.
The brand is an extrinsic, becuase in and of itself it has no demonstrable physical manifestation or function.
Just as i cannot pat the word "dog" or expect the word "dog" to go fetch a real stick - neither can I expect the Nike tick image to protect my feet or a picture of Colonel Sanders to satisfy my hunger.
Once established as an extrinsic association, the primary extrinsic(brand) can accumulate further association through more extrinsic additions - e.g. I can run training programs on the subject to connect the brand name, product and behavioural rewards through fictitions stories. We call these "advertisements". When the story is trained sufficiently it will produce a sublimation into the subconscious as a completed behavioural "macro" initiated by an environmental trigger. The more ambient that trigger is, the more it will be triggered.
So then to "Super-size Me" where other stories are attached to the brand - this causes a conflicting macro - it does not alter what is already sublimated. The new association induces a conscious evaluation of the brand that will eventually also sublimate as a "policy".
Our awareness can review these sublimated macros when they are challenged - this normally results in a thing we call "justification" if there is no pre-formed policy of conflicting associations.
But what we call "free will' is the dynamic whereby associations are fluid and governed by a focussing field we call "awareness" - the field of awareness supresses peripheral associations to prevent system saturation. The dynamic will follow the path of least resistance along the association trail, with stability governed by the static requirement of the proto-self (the monitor of body stability).
Does this help?
Mitch SMith 50+
Arkady Grudzinsky 50+
"Small", "medium", and "large" - is what we learn since the tale of Goldilocks is first read to us when we are kids, and that's what it is - "small", "medium", and "large".
They only get under our skin if we let them to.
Feyisayo Anjorin 50+
Advertising is effective, if not companies would not spend millions of dollars on it.
It is an individual responsibility to make sure that trends and fads are not followed slavishly; there are choices to make, there is a lot to choose from; and as individuals we should apply wisdom in our choices.
Wisdom would keep one from accepting every claim made my advertisers and manufacturers.
Tao P 50+
Robert Winner 50+
As a old analyist I can assure you that all polls are cooked. To determine who is number one in any survey is completely determined by the criteria you use. Example what is the best beer ... criteria: Must use only Colorado River water and brewed in the Rockies. Surprise .... Coors wins.
Years ago Coke used subliminal suggestions of a desert scenes in their coke ads. All of a sudden hurds of people left their cars at the drive in and went to the consession stand for a coke. That was later outlawed.
This topic opens a large can of advertising and political maneuvers .... One of the best was the old Russian regime and their ploy of joining the socialist movement ... It came in a pretty package and called Hansel and Grettle into the house but once there it was not as advertised.
The label "free" or "while they last" or "offer closes in 24 hours" should raise big red flags but people still fall for it everytime.
I hope that we can take away a lesson from this conversation.
Bob.
Mitch SMith 50+
I'd like to add that the accumulated associative process in extrinsic objects gives rise to a structure.
At a certain point of removal from observable body/physical causality, the extrinsic network produces an emergent property: "Framing".
Framing occurs when an extrinsic has multiple entry and exit points - with the exit point determined by the entry point.
For instance, the word "right" has 2 distinct entry and exit points:
1. a subjective direction relative to the facing (latin: dexter) associated antonymn "left"(latin sinister).
2. correct. Antonymn "wrong".
The word written without an entry point cannot invoke an exit point.
The frame is what we call "context".
Frames can become nested.
At a certain removal from physical causality, they become delusional. But still resolve in behaviour.
You rightly point out the mechanism of "the bum's rush" in sales technique as an example of delusory framing.
I'd be careful of framing socialism in terms of Hansel and Gretel - what you are talking about there is Stalanism.
You will observe in the context drift of directional right and correctness right were perverted by religion to associate virtue with the word "right" - retrospectively re-defining the latin words "dexter" to dextrous, and "sinister" to evil. This etymology demonstrates the potential of delusory framing structures.
Bob Stiglitz
I call it the engineers approach "How will this not work, or what is wrong with it?" keep asking questions like that and most everyones opinions and politics fly apart pretty quickly because you begin to understand _the universe does not work like that_.
Danger Lampost 10+
Your debate seems pretty closely related to this debate about whether we should teach children about how we are so easily manipulated: http://www.ted.com/conversations/14472/should_we_teach_our_kids_about.html.
Ken brown 30+