The lure of brands

When mailed ads were still a main marketing scheme, I got one from my actual mailbox that said, “Discover the meaning of life. Get a Mazda.”

I did not drive a Mazda nor have I ever driven one then but I remember being so struck by the ad that I kept it for a while.

I kept thinking what could have been going on in the minds of the ones who crafted that ad that would make them think I would associate the meaning (or what they seemed to presume a lack thereof) of my life with Mazda.  

It is no secret anymore that we fall, not for shampoo, bags, clothes or cars but for “kinds.”  And those “kinds” are not simple sensory criteria such as “creamy,” “big,” “soft,” or “fast.”

Instead, they involve a whole complex gamut of factual, perceived and imagined notions about those things. They have to do with your personality, what you value, what other people say about those “kinds” – and those are all real to you. 

In fact, I used to think that advertising is creative deception; now I realize how much of this game is a game my own brain willingly or unwillingly plays. 

According to scientific studies, both in psychology (behavior) and neuroscience (what happens to the brain exhibiting the behaviors), we basically make our decision to buy something based on what we sense, what pleasure we think we can derive from it, what we know for ourselves about the product, including the experiences we associate with it, and what we remember others say about it.

In terms of ‘sensing” something, we pay attention to what we sense we need and match it with what we see in our environment as well as what the friend we know also wants to drink.

If there were not 30 different kinds of drinks available to you in the environment or in your memory, when you get thirsty, you will simply head out to the nearest faucet or river. 

But in a supermarket or mall, you are confronted by so many choices to drink, and since we are predominantly visual creatures with 100 million photoreceptors, how visually attractive a drink is will play a big role in getting our attention.

Power of experience

The other thing that goes in our heads when we are choosing what to buy is how much we think we can enjoy the product.

Here is where all the associations between a product and pleasant experiences could hijack your buying decision. If products are associated with “high fashion” or the rich and famous, then there is a whole “positive” baggage associated with it versus no-name or “low-class” brands.

No story could highlight this more than what Yale psychologist Paul Bloom recounted in his TEDTalk. 

Bloom said that Hitler’s second in command, Hermann Goerring, had a favorite Vermeer painting he bought for what would now be the equivalent of US$10 million from a Dutch art dealer named van Meegeren.

It turned out later that the painting was a forgery, painted by the Dutch art dealer himself.  When Goerring was told during his trials that his favorite painting was a fake, the Nazi leader looked as if he “just realized there was evil in the world.”

That is the power of branding. 

Aside from what you imagine or what associated experience you remember about a product, what you actually experienced about that product matters. That is a no-brainer except that it is not just your experience that figures here but also what other people who experienced it think about the product.

I think this is the “word-of-mouth” phenomenon. This is why endorsers for products seem to work to get people to buy stuff even if, most of the time, there is no real proof that the endorsers actually use the products they are promoting. 

I find that this could be quite dangerous especially for supplements with “no approved therapeutic claims” (which means they have not passed scientific and standard testing).

While no beautiful face could change the molecules of supplements to make them work as they claim they do, most of us think it will. 

What we sense and pay attention to, the enjoyment we think we will have with a product, and the pleasant associations we have about a product make up a complex neuroscience field of study. 

Neuroscientists are always very careful to say that there is no clear formula yet for them to say what determines a sale. However, the game is alive everywhere, highlighted in malls and supermarkets where more and more, patterns are set and re-set and advertisers and merchandisers are chasing after them to register a sale in our buying brains. 

Alain de Botton wrote in his book , “The Consolations of Philosophy,” about an ancient  shopping mall called Oinoanda (120 AD) located in a town in Asia minor that sported this sign:

“Luxurious foods and drinks…in no way produce freedom from harm and a healthy condition in the flesh…One must regard wealth beyond what is natural as of no more use than water to a container that is full to overflowing…Real value is generated not by theatres and baths and perfumes and ointments…but by natural science.”

These days, you would not find that sign in any mall or if you did, it would have, in the end “this philosophical reminder made possible by ____(your brand here.).” – Rappler.com

Maria Isabel Garcia is a science writer. She has written two books, “Science Solitaire” and “Twenty One Grams of Spirit and Seven Ounces of Desire.” Her column appears every Friday and you can reach her at sciencesolitaire@gmail.com.