Brand marketing promotion, 6 common psychological effects!

Contemporary people often present some strange consumption concepts. An old lady who is willing to spend 6,000 yuan to buy a dance skirt may bargain with a vendor for fifty cents in the vegetable market. A young girl who is willing to overdraw her credit card to buy a brand-name bag feels bad about ordering a 15 yuan takeout meal. An elderly person who lives frugally on food, clothing, housing and transportation may spend tens of thousands of yuan to bring back a rubber mattress from a tourist attraction. Why are there such huge differences in our consumption views, and what kind of traps do marketers set for us during our consumption process? Here we have to talk about the common psychological effects in marketing.

According to psychological research, we experience a psychological pain when spending money, which is similar to the pain we feel when our fingers are burned by fire. One of the things that marketing strives to do is to reduce people's sense of pain in consumption by creating illusions and laying traps. And this requires us to talk about the role of marketing psychology. What are the common psychological effects in marketing? How does marketing psychology affect our lives? In this article, the author will take you to understand the seven common psychological effects in marketing.

1. The Flywheel Effect – The Power of Consumption Habits

How much force do you need to get a stagnant flywheel to start turning? In fact, when we want to turn a stagnant flywheel, the force we need to use at the beginning is the greatest. When we rotate the flywheel round and round, after the flywheel reaches a certain speed, the inertia and potential energy of the flywheel's own movement will cause the flywheel to continue rotating. This is the basic principle of the flywheel effect.

In the consumption process, we often see this flywheel effect in our lives. Once consumers' consumption habits are cultivated, marketers do not have to expend much effort to attract batches of consumers.

In order to cultivate consumers' consumption habits, financially strong Internet giants have chosen the path of "spending money for users". The basic pattern of this strategy is:

By spending money, they first win over users, build industry entry standards, and then extend the brand and expand the products to make up for the shortcomings of the inherent story. When Taobao and JD.com were dividing the e-commerce world, Pinduoduo relied on "user subsidies" and "social fission" to squeeze into the sinking market and rose quietly, creating a "cat, dog and pin" three-kingdoms pattern in the e-commerce industry. Luckin Coffee has gained hundreds of millions of users by "burning money", expanding 2,000 stores a year, and quickly becoming a worthy rival to Starbucks. Huabei spent 2 billion yuan to win over countless Alipay users, making countless users develop the habit of pre-consumption.

Why are Internet giants willing to spend huge amounts of money on cultivating users? The reason is that they are well aware of the importance of the "flywheel effect". In fact, once consumers' consumption habits are cultivated, consumers will form continuous consumption on the platform like a rotating flywheel. Not only will the platform's subsequent investment be reduced, but the invested funds will also gradually flow back.

2. Herd mentality - people's tendency to follow the crowd

In Le Bon-Gustave's "The Crowd", it is explained that the "crowd" has three characteristics: low IQ, susceptibility to suggestion, and susceptibility to infection.

Rather than viewing a group as a collection of individuals, we should view it as an individual being that has life, that breathes, moves, and thinks. Each of us is a cell of the "group". Cells cannot think independently, so people will instinctively follow the will of the group and gradually lose themselves.

A woman who usually never wears makeup may buy a lipstick she doesn't need under the hype of the Internet. Normally rational scholars will also buy clothes and change their hairstyles according to fashion trends. The lower-tier markets and youth groups who are easily instigated are more likely to follow the trend of group "public opinion."

This is why major brands spend millions of dollars on press conferences every year in an attempt to create trends, and why our advertisements always create the illusion that "everyone is doing it." As long as there is a trend, there will be no shortage of people who follow it. As long as there is a "group", there will be no shortage of people who follow the crowd.

One thing that marketing has always been trying to do is to try to use people’s herd mentality to create trends and fashions, turning people into “sheep” who have lost their wisdom and independent thinking.

3. The Principle of Redundancy - The Illusion of Consumer Goods as “Necessities”

Biologist Zahavi explained in the "Drag Principle" that in nature, organisms often grow appearances that are not conducive to survival in order to attract the opposite sex and reproduce genes. That's why the peacock has a beautiful but obstructive tail that's twice its length, and the bird of paradise has extremely gorgeous, brightly colored feathers on its chest.

Genes are selfish, they only want to propagate their own genes. Animals in nature have developed a "cumbersome" appearance. The same is true in human society. In order to attract the attention of the opposite sex, men and women try their best to show their physical advantages.

One thing that marketing should do is to try to make the "product" play the role of a necessity in people's lives, so that people have the illusion that this product is indispensable and that they cannot prove their beauty and wisdom without this product.

The most typical application of the "burden principle" is in lipstick marketing. Ever since the YSL Starry Night lipstick became a hit, marketers have successfully made lipstick play the role of a burdensome item in our lives.

The illusion created by lipstick marketing is that without a lipstick of this color, you cannot become a beautiful fairy.

"Male-attracting color", "mermaid color", "street standing color" and "scheming color" have replaced terms such as red and rose pink to become the representatives of lipstick colors, which simply capture the hearts of girls. It seems that with just a lipstick, you can charm all the opposite sex. It seems that as long as you change the color of lipstick, you can change your face. Today you are a sweet little fairy, tomorrow you are a "bare-faced goddess", and the day after tomorrow you are a "seductive slut".

4. The Birdcage Effect – Tricking you into buying products you don’t need

The principle of the birdcage effect comes from a short story. In 1907, the famous psychologist James and his good friend Carlson retired from Harvard University. One day the two made a bet, and James said he would let Carlson raise a bird soon. Carlson disagrees. So Jameson gave Carlson an exquisite birdcage, and Carlson placed the exquisite birdcage in the living room.

Unexpectedly, not long after, Carlson really raised a bird. He complained that every guest who came to his home would ask, "Professor, when did your bird die?", forcing Carlson to explain to the guests again and again. In desperation, Carlson had to buy a bird.

This is the "birdcage effect" in psychology. In marketing, in order to trap consumers in a "birdcage", marketers often produce "matching" products. When you buy one of the products, you will have to buy the matching product. Also, when we go shopping in a mall, we often get some small gifts, such as pen covers or headbands. In order to use the pen covers and headbands, we have to buy matching pens and clothing. This is the application of the "birdcage effect" in the marketing scenario.

5. Veblen Effect – The Power of Showing Off

Is it true that the lower the price of a product, the more willing consumers are to buy it? The Veblen effect reveals a strange psychological phenomenon of people. When products are priced higher, they are more likely to be favored by consumers. This effect reflects consumers' psychological needs for goods, that is, the psychological needs for splurge and show off.

The philosophical and marketing principles behind luxury goods are also worth our consideration. Baudrillard once said that consumer culture follows the principle of symbolization of daily life and commodities. In a commodity society where consumerism prevails, all consumption is simplified into symbolic consumption. In contrast, luxury goods have become commodities that people use to demonstrate their identity and reflect their economic strength. This is why luxury goods are priced far beyond their cost, yet countless consumers flock to them. Only branded goods can show that you are a person of taste.

The word corresponding to “big brand” is “expensive”, which is why some big-brand products are always priced very high, yet consumers still flock to them. However, this does not tell us that we should blindly set high prices for our products. One-sided pursuit of high prices without considering the essence of the goods will have the opposite effect.

However, when a brand intends to go the high-end route, setting a relatively high price will help establish the brand's style and attract more consumers' attention than setting a moderate price.

6. Free Psychology - Another Paid Trap

Free is a powerful tool to quickly gain market share and grab users' attention. "Free" can not only help emerging companies enter the market and occupy a place in the market, but also make customers fall into the consumption traps set by marketers because of their desire to get a bargain.

"Buy health products and get a free trip" is a common marketing trap targeting the elderly. Free products and services are also a major strategy for Internet companies to enter emerging markets.

As long as the user base is large enough and the product is high-quality enough, companies can retain users for a long time through the free model, and then continue to retain users by providing higher-level, differentiated and innovative products.

Qihoo 360 opened up the antivirus software market with its free antivirus software and became the industry leader within a year. This is the power of free. After gathering users for free, merchants can then make profits by providing some high-quality services. As long as the user base is large enough, there will be no shortage of paying people.

Another application of the "free psychology" is to create some "extras" for customers, improving their consumption experience and making them pay more without realizing it. According to a study of American restaurants, when a mint is given to guests after a meal, the tip can be increased by 3%; two mints can increase the tip by 14%.

Similarly, when purchasing cosmetics, merchants will also give away some small items, such as product samples, lotions, cosmetic bags, etc. Although merchants did not pay much more, customers' shopping experience was greatly improved. That's the power of free.

Conclusion:

In the Internet society, competition on products has come to an end, and the real competition should be on customers. In marketing, learning to grasp the user's psychology will be the key to marketing success.

1. How to plan marketing activities for those festivals that are “difficult” to leverage?

2. Brand marketing promotion: the underlying logic behind Durex’s content marketing!

3. Brand marketing promotion: How to learn the product placement of “The Debaters”?

4. Brand marketing promotion rules: How to construct a marketing framework?

5. Marketing and promotion skills | The marketing of Uniqlo’s co-branded T-shirts that were snapped up!

6. How to plan product portfolio strategy for marketing promotion?

Author: Fang Yun

Source: PR Home