The Psychological Side To Marketing

The psychological side to marketing. Something that greatly appeals to me as an ex A Level psych student, now marketer.

It was something that I have been meaning to research for a while now; until I realised just how important it is - now it is at the top of my to do list!

The other day a client came into the office for a meeting; during which the business park’s ‘food van’ came past the office building playing it’s usual tune. The client turned to me and said, “doesn’t that make you hungry, it’s like Pavlov’s dogs”. I knew exactly what she meant, jokily replying with “Yes! It’s conditioning us to get hungry!”

But it was the client’s comment that got me thinking about what other things are used in our day-to-day lives as an effort to classically condition us in a certain way? What other cues are used in advertising to spark a particular thought or feeling amongst us?
Although this sounds like a scary thought, the bare bones of it is that advertisers try to get consumers associating their product with a certain feeling or response. Which; when you say it like that, sounds obvious.

An obvious example of classical conditioning in advertisements is music. If the advertiser wants the consumer to feel happy when watching a video ad, they’ll play happy music. If they want a sad emotion provoked, they’ll player slow, piano music - that type of thing.
But what about in picture ads? What are advertisers doing to practise classical conditioning in still image ads?

A basic example of still image classical conditioning would be a photo of a juicy burger. That image has been chosen to stimulate a hunger response within the consumer.

Classical conditioning is everywhere in today’s marketing world and it’s scary to see just how much psychology goes into advertisements.

On the next campaign I work on, I am definitely going to be thinking about all of these things to make the campaign even more successful.