There's a meme, particularly virulent in educated circles, about how advertising works — how it sways and seduces us, coaxing us gently toward a purchase.
The meme goes something like this:
The label ("emotional inception") is my own, but the idea should be familiar enough. It's the model of how ads work made popular by Mad Men, and you can find similar accounts all across the web. A write-up at the Atlantic, for example — titled "Why Good Advertising Works (Even When You Think It Doesn't)" — says that
Lifehacker echoes these ideas in an article intended to help readers mitigate the effect of ads. "An ad succeeds at making us feel something," it says, "and that emotional response can have a profound effect on how we think and the choices we make."
This is a decidedly Pavlovian account of ad efficacy. Like Pavlov's dogs, who learned to associate the ringing of a bell with subsequent food delivery, humans too can be trained to make more-or-less arbitrary associations. If Coke shows us enough images of people beaming with joy after drinking their product, we'll come to associate Coke with happiness. Then, sometime later, those good vibes will come flooding back to us, and we'll be more likely to purchase Coke.
This meme or theory about how ads work — by emotional inception — has become so ingrained, at least in my own model of the world, that it was something I always just took on faith, without ever really thinking about it. But now that I have stopped to think about it, I'm shocked at how irrational it makes us out to be. It suggests that human preferences can be changed with nothing more than a few arbitrary images. Even Pavlov's dogs weren't so easily manipulated: they actually received food after the arbitrary stimulus. If ads worked the same way — if a Coke employee approached you on the street offering you a free taste, then gave you a massage or handed you $5 — well then of course you'd learn to associate Coke with happiness.
But most ads are toothless and impotent, mere ink on paper or pixels on a screen. They can't feed you, hurt you, or keep you warm at night. So if a theory (like emotional inception) says that something as flat and passive as an ad can have such a strong effect on our behavior, we should hold that theory to a pretty high burden of proof.
Social scientists have a tool that they use to reason about phenomena like this: Homo economicus. This is an idealized model of human behavior, a hypothetical creature (/caricature) who makes perfectly "rational" decisions, where "rational" is a well-defined game-theoretic concept meaning (roughly) self-interested and utility-maximizing. In other words, a Homo economicus— of which no actual instances exist, but which every real human being approximates to a greater or lesser extent — will always, to the best of its available knowledge, make the decisions which maximize expected outcomes according to its own preferences.
If we (consumers) are swayed by emotional inception, then it seems we're violating this model of economic rationality. Specifically, H. economicus has fixed preferences or fixed goals — in technical jargon, a fixed "utility function." These are exogenous, unalterable by anyone — not the actor him- or herself and especially not third parties. But if inception actually works on us, then in fact our preferences and goals aren't just malleable, but easily malleable. All an advertiser needs to do is show a pretty face next to Product X, and suddenly we're filled with desire for it.
This is an exaggeration of course. More realistically, we need to see an ad multiple times before it eventually starts to rewrite our desires. But the point still stands: external agents can, without our permission, alter the contents of our minds and send us scampering off in service of goals that are not ours.
I know it's popular these days to underscore just how biased and irrational we are, as human creatures — and, to be fair, our minds are full of quirks. But in this case, the inception theory of advertising does the human mind a disservice. It portrays us as far less rational than we actually are. We may not conform to a model of perfect economic behavior, but neither are we puppets at the mercy of every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a billboard. We aren't that easily manipulated.
Ads, I will argue, don't work by emotional inception.
TRUTH IN ADVERTISING
Well then: how do they work?
Emotional inception is one (proposed) mechanism, but in fact there are many such mechanisms. And they're not mutually exclusive: a typical ad will employ a few different techniques at once — most of which are far more straightforward and above-board than emotional inception. Insofar as we respond to these other mechanisms, we're acting fully in accordance with the Homo economicus model of human behavior.
The guiding principle here is that these mechanisms impart legitimate, valuable information. Let's take a look at a few of them.
The meme goes something like this:
Rather than attempting to persuade us (via our rational, analytical minds), ads prey on our emotions. They work by creating positive associations between the advertised product and feelings like love, happiness, safety, and sexual confidence. These associations grow and deepen over time, making us feel favorably disposed toward the product and, ultimately, more likely to buy it.Here we have a theory — a proposed mechanism — of how ads influence consumer behavior. Let's call it emotional inception or just inception, coined after the movie of the same name where specialists try to implant ideas in other people's minds, subconsciously, by manipulating their dreams. In the case of advertising, however, dreams aren't the inception vector, but rather ideas and images, especially ones which convey potent emotions.
The label ("emotional inception") is my own, but the idea should be familiar enough. It's the model of how ads work made popular by Mad Men, and you can find similar accounts all across the web. A write-up at the Atlantic, for example — titled "Why Good Advertising Works (Even When You Think It Doesn't)" — says that
advertising rarely succeeds through argument or calls to action. Instead, it creates positive memories and feelings that influence our behavior over time to encourage us to buy something at a later date."The objective [of advertising]," the article continues, "is to seed positive ideas and memories that will attract you to the brand."
Lifehacker echoes these ideas in an article intended to help readers mitigate the effect of ads. "An ad succeeds at making us feel something," it says, "and that emotional response can have a profound effect on how we think and the choices we make."This is a decidedly Pavlovian account of ad efficacy. Like Pavlov's dogs, who learned to associate the ringing of a bell with subsequent food delivery, humans too can be trained to make more-or-less arbitrary associations. If Coke shows us enough images of people beaming with joy after drinking their product, we'll come to associate Coke with happiness. Then, sometime later, those good vibes will come flooding back to us, and we'll be more likely to purchase Coke.
This meme or theory about how ads work — by emotional inception — has become so ingrained, at least in my own model of the world, that it was something I always just took on faith, without ever really thinking about it. But now that I have stopped to think about it, I'm shocked at how irrational it makes us out to be. It suggests that human preferences can be changed with nothing more than a few arbitrary images. Even Pavlov's dogs weren't so easily manipulated: they actually received food after the arbitrary stimulus. If ads worked the same way — if a Coke employee approached you on the street offering you a free taste, then gave you a massage or handed you $5 — well then of course you'd learn to associate Coke with happiness.
But most ads are toothless and impotent, mere ink on paper or pixels on a screen. They can't feed you, hurt you, or keep you warm at night. So if a theory (like emotional inception) says that something as flat and passive as an ad can have such a strong effect on our behavior, we should hold that theory to a pretty high burden of proof.
Social scientists have a tool that they use to reason about phenomena like this: Homo economicus. This is an idealized model of human behavior, a hypothetical creature (/caricature) who makes perfectly "rational" decisions, where "rational" is a well-defined game-theoretic concept meaning (roughly) self-interested and utility-maximizing. In other words, a Homo economicus— of which no actual instances exist, but which every real human being approximates to a greater or lesser extent — will always, to the best of its available knowledge, make the decisions which maximize expected outcomes according to its own preferences.
If we (consumers) are swayed by emotional inception, then it seems we're violating this model of economic rationality. Specifically, H. economicus has fixed preferences or fixed goals — in technical jargon, a fixed "utility function." These are exogenous, unalterable by anyone — not the actor him- or herself and especially not third parties. But if inception actually works on us, then in fact our preferences and goals aren't just malleable, but easily malleable. All an advertiser needs to do is show a pretty face next to Product X, and suddenly we're filled with desire for it.
This is an exaggeration of course. More realistically, we need to see an ad multiple times before it eventually starts to rewrite our desires. But the point still stands: external agents can, without our permission, alter the contents of our minds and send us scampering off in service of goals that are not ours.
I know it's popular these days to underscore just how biased and irrational we are, as human creatures — and, to be fair, our minds are full of quirks. But in this case, the inception theory of advertising does the human mind a disservice. It portrays us as far less rational than we actually are. We may not conform to a model of perfect economic behavior, but neither are we puppets at the mercy of every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a billboard. We aren't that easily manipulated.
Ads, I will argue, don't work by emotional inception.
TRUTH IN ADVERTISING
Well then: how do they work?
Emotional inception is one (proposed) mechanism, but in fact there are many such mechanisms. And they're not mutually exclusive: a typical ad will employ a few different techniques at once — most of which are far more straightforward and above-board than emotional inception. Insofar as we respond to these other mechanisms, we're acting fully in accordance with the Homo economicus model of human behavior.
The guiding principle here is that these mechanisms impart legitimate, valuable information. Let's take a look at a few of them.
by Kevin Simler, Melting Asphalt | Read more:
Image: via
