By Dino Sossi
Figure #1 – Taste the difference? (Bond, 2020)
Why do we have advertising?
Paying for content via advertisements is a relatively recent phenomenon.
In his important and timely book The Attention Merchants (20106), author Tim Wu believes that the whole idea of advertising started with The New York Sun newspaper. In this historical example, Sun publisher Benjamin Day had a truly novel idea–sell advertising as a way to subsidize the cost of his paper. As a result, because of the direct financial subsidy coming from advertising, Day could sell his newspapers below the cost of production. Correspondingly, from the lowered priced, buyers flocked to his periodical and he could increase circulation.
Bingo! The dawn of advertising had begun.
Do You Feel Like Shopping? Using Emotion as an Advertising Tool
Figure #2 – Look up. I think I see a sale! (Ukiomogbe, n.d.)
Advertisers and marketers have used emotions to prompt purchasers to part with their hard earned dollars, well, ever since there was advertising and marketing. Wu does not see these efforts as inherently problematic. Well, at least as long as these efforts are somewhat honest:
The question is: I think at a second level, once you have someone engaged [in a topic], is whether you present the issue in its full complexity, or whether you keep it at this distorted, simplistic, stereotype, as Walter Lippmann said, way of looking at it? (Lopatto, 2016)
From Wu’s perspective, it appears that as long as a product is sold using a sufficient amount of complexity and does not veer into stereotype, then it is fine.
However, this begs the following questions:
- Is a 30-second Super Bowl commercial for Budweiser sufficiently complex?
- And is a one-page glossy magazine ad of a supermodel selling Dolce & Gabbana not stereotypical?
In short, isn’t most advertising and marketing simple and stereotypical?
From this, it appears that ads that appeal to our basest emotions have always been a problem due to their ability to impact consumers.
But why does it feel like today’s Silicon Valley has an even greater power to manipulate us than 1950s Madison Avenue ad execs? In short, why does Mark Zuckerberg feel more influential than Don Draper?
Hooked: Bringing Engagement to a Whole New Level
Figure #3 – Hook, line, and what a bunch of stinkers! (AntanO, 2012)
Nir Eyal’s book Hooked (2014) is essential reading for designers and users. It helps us understand the psychological factors at play in getting us to use the essential delivery devices for most of the ads that we consume today: smartphones.
Figure #4 – Are you hooked by the Hook Model? (Eyal, 2014)
Moving in a clockwise motion from the top-left quadrant to lower-left above, there are four stages to the Hook Model for getting users to use a product or service:
1. Trigger (upper left above): An internal or external cue that prompts users to engage in a certain type of behavior.
2. Action (upper right): When users use a product or service. Users normally choose to engage in a particular action because of its ease of use or another form of motivation.
3. Variable Reward (lower right): A user’s motivation to use and re-use a product is reinforced by presenting her/him with different types and levels of reward.
4. Investment (lower left): Some type of useful user input makes her/him want to commit to going through this four-step model again. And again. And again…
Calgon, take me away!
Fighting Back: Unhooking Us from Hooks
As you could imagine, when everyone on the planet subjects her/himself to the Hook Model every time they interact with their devices, an entire global population becomes willing, but often unknowing, subjects to this attention economy.
So how do we get out of this hooked loop? In short, how do we unhook ourselves?
Silicon Valley vet Jaron Lanier radically suggests that we delete all of our social media accounts (2018). Uh, right now! He writes in detail about the following ten reasons to get off of these popular platforms:
(1) You are losing your free will.
(2) Quitting social media is the most finely targeted way to resist the insanity of our times.
(3) Social media is making you an a$$hole. (Sorry, this is a family post!)
(4) Social media is undermining truth.
(5) Social media is making what you say meaningless.
(6) Social media is destroying your capacity for empathy.
(7) Social media is making you unhappy.
(8) Social media doesn’t want you to have economic dignity.
(9) Social media is making politics impossible.
(10) Social media hates your soul. (Lanier, 2018)
Others, like social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, suggest the following:
Figure #5 – Tips against social on social?!? So meta! (Haidt, 2019)
Sorry, gotta go. I really need to tweet!
I guess I better re-read what I just wrote…
References:
AntanO. (2012, May 19). Fish-hook.JPG. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fish-hook.JPG
Bond, C. (2020, January 13). 9 comparative advertising examples to help you get ahead. WordStream. https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2020/01/13/comparative-advertising
Eyal, N. (2014). Hooked: How to build habit-forming products. New York, NY: Portfolio.
Haidt, J. [@JonHaidt]. (2019, January 9). This is why I am on a campaign to encourage parents to adopt 3 norms: 1) all screens out of bedroom 30 min before bedtime [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/JonHaidt/status/1083020940915757057
Lanier, J. (2018). Ten arguments for deleting your social media accounts right now. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company.
Lopatto, E. (2016, November 15). Tim Wu on advertising, Donald Trump, and Google’s central tragedy. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/15/13465796/tim-wu-interview-attention-merchants-advertising-donald-trump
Ukiomogbe, J. (n.d.). Where are emotions felt in the body? This infographic will tell you. Greatist. https://greatist.com/connect/emotional-body-maps-infographic#does-this-work
Wu, T. (2016). The attention merchants. New York, NY: Vintage Books.
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