Effects Of Advertising On Our Unconscious

Selling is one of the keys to maintaining the social dynamic in which we are immersed. Not surprisingly, it is continually bombarded with advertisements that are intended to foment it. These ads fill television spaces, we find them on the street, on the subway and on the internet. Yet, many times we are unable to understand the effects of advertising on the unconscious.

One of the most surprising rules that marketing uses is that people tend to shop without really thinking. In this regard, the literature tells us that many of the products we buy are the result of an impulse. In other words: rarely do we make an informed choice about what we spend our money on.

It is for this reason that most companies place the awakening of our instinctive part, of our desire at the center of their advertising. In today’s article we talk about the most common techniques, so that you can discover the effects of advertising on our unconscious.

Reason VS emotion: why focus advertising on the unconscious?

One of the most important discoveries of social psychology is the elaboration probability model of persuasion. According to this theory, for which we can count on a huge amount of evidence, people can be convinced by two ways. While one depends on the rationality of the message, the other has to do almost exclusively with our emotions.

What does the choice of one or the other path depend on? As far as we know, the choice is determined by the amount of mental resources we are willing to invest. If a person has the ability and the desire to reflect on something, it will be necessary to persuade him in a rational way. However, if that person cannot or does not want to think, their emotions will direct them to the choice.

By studying this model, advertisers around the world have found that we don’t usually spend a lot of time thinking about what we buy. If we need a washing machine, for example, we hardly make a list of the pros and cons to choose the best model. On the contrary, we will have a tendency to choose the one that first caught our attention and that seems to work relatively well.

Precisely for this reason, for decades companies have decided to focus their advertising on the unconscious. By managing to awaken certain emotions in us, they know that sales will increase. This will happen, among other things, regardless of the real quality of the sponsored product.

The effects of advertising and the most common ways to sell by focusing on emotions

While consumers generally don’t realize this, most companies know that we buy certain products because we feel attached to them. As a result, most of the ads contain a number of common features, intended to exploit this reality. Below we see some of the most common.

1- Associate the product with well-being

Have you ever wondered why mostly happy people appear in advertisements? As many studies show, the answer is really simple: happiness sells more than objective data. 

If you stop to think about the marketing that surrounds you, you will find that in general very little information is given on the advertised product. When we see a commercial about a car, we rarely talk about its power, its technical characteristics or the quality of its components. On the contrary, the emphasis is on the driving experience, on the social status that it will give us to buy it or on the happiness that it will offer us driving it.

The next time you see a commercial, ask yourself the following: What positive emotion does the seller want to associate with their product? If you find out, you will have taken a step towards controlling the effects of advertising on the unconscious.

2- Exclusivity

One of the most important principles of persuasion is deficiency. This principle assumes that when we believe that an object is rare or difficult to find, we want it more intensely. This happens both with objects and with people, with work or with experience.

Advertisers are well aware of the power that lack of something has on our brains. For this reason, one of the most common marketing strategies is to sell a product as if it were absolutely exclusive or that it can offer us specific benefits if we buy it on certain days. Buyers feel like they’ve got a bargain.

Perhaps the clearest demonstration of this principle is Apple’s Think Different campaign. This brand has managed to position its products as exclusive or alternative. Thus, today several million people own an iPhone or a MacBook.

However, Apple isn’t the only company taking advantage of this mental spring. From car manufacturing companies to clothing brands, various products exponentially increase sales by simply proclaiming themselves exclusive.

Concluding reflections on the effects of advertising

Obviously the two principles mentioned are not the only effects of marketing on our mind; are some of the most popular. To avoid them, the only solution is to reflect on our purchases more consciously. By focusing on rational data and not on our emotions, we will be able to better manage much of the effects of advertising on the unconscious.

Editorial note: in this article, with the term “unconscious” we do not refer to that part of our mind to which the conscience has no access, but to a content to which the conscience has access, but which it does not access (or which neglects ), in an effort to waste as little energy as possible when it comes to making a decision.