A lot of commercials seem pretty weird, right?
So why is that? 
And do those commercials actually work?
That's what I'll explain in this video.
I'm going to break down some commercials 
that seem pretty weird on the surface
but actually have a deeper psychology 
that's trying to influence you
and what's actually going on.
So let's dive in.
The first principle is linguistic fluency.
Suppose that you're buying body wash.
Now, a lot of people have a go-to brand 
that they buy every single time.
And they're not going to switch.
Yet, a lot of people don't have 
a strong brand attachment.
And they just choose whatever option 
 feels right at the time.
Now, that gut reaction might seem unimportant.
But that choice is occurring
for millions of people across the globe.
Every single day.
So those crucial seconds determine a very large 
source of revenue for businesses.
So brands naturally want to become that final winner 
of that arbitrary choice.
And so how do they do that?
Well for one, commercials.
They increase the activation 
of those brands in people's minds.
And I'll explain the exact mechanism later, but for now
one tactic to accomplish that 
involves linguistic repetitions.
Essentially just repeating the same information.
With a lazy approach that strategy 
becomes very obvious.
Head on. Apply directly to the
forehead. Head on. Apply directly to the...
You get the idea.
But with some creativity, 
those repetitions can fly under your radar.
So in this commercial for Captain Morgan
everybody is addressing a captain 
by saying . . . well . . . captain.
Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain.
In a 30-second timeslot
Captain Morgan manages to say 
"Captain" - their brand - a total of 31 times.
And you see see similar strategies 
with other mass market goods, like Old Spice.
Old . . . Spice . . . Old . . . Spice . . . Old . . . Spice.
Literally just screaming the brand name.
So here's what's happening.
Both commercials are increasing the
activation for those linguistic names
triggering a concept known as fluency.
So when you're making that final gut reaction choice
the brand name with the most activation 
will pop into your mind more easily
That fluency and that ease with which it comes to mind
it makes it seem as though 
something feels right about that brand
and you conclude that 
it must be that you want to buy that brand.
And so that's the key mechanism behind fluency.
Now, just a point of commentary before moving on.
Those repetitions involve two types of fluency.
Conceptual fluency and phonological fluency.
Conceptual fluency involves the
semantic concepts themselves.
So after those repetitions, the concepts of
Captain Morgan and Old Spice
will enter  your mind more easily.
With phonological fluency, the mere combinations 
of sounds will be easier to pronounce
and they'll feel more familiar,
even if you don't necessarily activate 
the underlying concepts themselves.
Now that distinction  might seem unimportant, 
but I'll explain why it matters.
I'm assuming that both brands are 
trying to increase fluency in general
but if we distinguish between these two types of fluency
we'll notice that those repetitions might 
actually decrease conceptual fluency.
There's a principle in psychology. 
It's not too common, but it's well supported.
It's called semantic satiation.
If you repeat a word many times in a row, you temporarily inhibit the conceptual meaning of that word.
There was a study where people 
repeated the word anger 30 times in a row.
And afterward, they had
trouble identifying angry faces.
Because they inhibited that conceptual meaning 
through those repetitions
they literally couldn't perceive anger.
And there's an interesting string of studies, 
but the main point is that
Captain Morgan might be 
shooting themselves in the foot.
Their overabundance of repetitions might actually
decrease the conceptual fluency 
for Captain Morgan.
In fact, their commercial coincidentally 
has the same number of repetitions
in studies on semantic satiation.
Now, that said, that inhibition
would only occur
in the moments immediately afterward
so it probably doesn't matter anyway, 
but let's just stick with this train of thought.
Assuming that conceptual fluency is off the table
would we still experience this effect 
with phonological fluency.
And the answer is yes.
With phonological fluency, it doesn't matter 
whether you're experiencing semantic satiation
because the effect is coming from the mere 
articulation and pronunciation of those sounds.
So it doesn't matter whether you
can't access the underlying concept.
However, one final tidbit before moving on.
Because phonological fluency is coming
from the mere articulation and
pronunciation, you don't experience
fluency if your mouth is occupied
whether you're talking to somebody or
even chewing gum. When your mouth is
occupied you don't experience what's
called "muscular subvocalization."
And because you don't experience 
that ease and feeling of fluency
you have no feelings to 
misattribute toward those brands.
So that's why you need that
feeling of subvocalization.
Sascha Topolinski is the key researcher 
behind that phenomenon of subvocalization.
And he's published some really 
interesting studies. I'll link to them below
But that's linguistic fluency.
The second principle is nonconscious mimicry.
So to understand this effect,
you need to know two things.
First, physiological responses 
can trigger corresponding emotions.
So if you feel happy you're going to smile.
However, the reverse is true.
If you smile, then that physiological response 
produces feelings of happiness.
And that same effect also happens for learned or  cultural gestures as well like head nodding.
People tested headphones by
nodding their head up and down or
shaking their head side to side
and the people who nodded their head up and down
showed stronger agreement to a news broadcast 
that was being played over the headphones.
The second thing you need to know 
is the chameleon effect.
So if you're talking to somebody,
you automatically feel an urge to 
mimic their nonverbal behavior.
So if they're leaning to the side,
you feel an urge to lean to the side.
And now we can combine those two principles.
So if you're talking to somebody 
while nodding your head
then that person will experience a
nonconscious urge to nod their head
and through that physiological response 
of nodding their head
they'll show stronger agreement 
with whatever message you're trying to convey.
Now, I describe that concept in my book
Methods of Persuasion,
but I really just included it 
for the theoretical explanation.
I didn't expect any business to actually 
implement this on a wider scale.
I mean, when you think about it,
what business would just show a commercial with people just randomly nodding their head, right?
Okay, so I'll give Xfinity the benefit of the doubt
and I'll assume that their
commercial is purely coincidental
and that there is no mischievous intent behind their part
but literally
the whole commercial is filled 
with a family repeatedly nodding their head.
Almost every scene just has the same exact motor movements.
Can we just back up?
Literally, this one scene has 
11 people randomly nodding their head
like is that even dancing, like c'mon, really!
So the commercial finally ends 
with the whole family nodding their head
while Xfinity displays their key benefits 
of simple, easy, awesome.
And at this point, if you're nodding 
your head because of that mimicry,
you'll activate a mindset of agreement
and you will perceive those benefits 
and the Xfinity product to be more favorable.
Now again, all of this is probably coincidental
I wouldn't expect any mischievous 
intent behind this commercial.
But if this is the purpose and intent of this commercial
then I would say this is a prime example - no pun intended - of a business
applying cognitive research 
in a manipulative and deceptive way.
And I'm against these types of applications.
Well, what applications would be acceptable or ethical?
So let's enter the third principle. Top-down Attention.
When you have an active goal,
you experience what's called top-down attention.
you can perceive stimuli that
are related to that goal
while blocking out stimuli that are unrelated to that goal.
So if I show you a group 
of red X's and green Os
you can focus on those red X's
while letting the green O's kind of
fade into the background.
And it's the same reason why,
 if you're busy counting basketball passes,
you'll fail to see a giant gorilla walk through the 
middle of the screen. It's the same principle.
Now, because of that principle we can easily 
block out advertisements and commercials
from entering our attention. So how our
marketers trying to break through
that top-down attention? Well, a lot of them try to do that by increasing the saliency of a message
By making it louder, brighter, 
or anything else to make it stand out more.
And that seems like the common-sense 
approach, but it actually backfires.
Let's say that you're trying to attract 
more attention to a banner advertisement
by increasing the saturation of the color.
When you do that, you're making it easier
for people to classify that stimulus
as an unrelated advertisement. So because they can they can identify it as unrelated more easily
they can more easily 
block it from entering their attention.
So paradoxically, by making a stimulus more noticeable
you can actually make it less noticeable.
The clever marketers are the ones who
instead of increasing 
the saliency of a message
will transform their message so that it 
resembles the goals and expectations of people.
So here's an example.
One of my guilty pleasures that
I don't usually tell people
is that sometimes I watch wrestling.
I trust that you'll keep this between us, right?
So what goal do 
people have during a commercial?
Well, they're waiting for the show to come back, right?
In a common segment for WWE,
they usually have a wrestler named Elias 
who comes out and plays the guitar for people.
And one time, during a commercial break, 
I saw the beginning of that segment.
And so naturally, I reoriented 
my attention back to the TV.
And then I come to find that wait . . .
this isn't WWE . . . this is a commercial for Snickers. They're  just incorporating Elias into the commercial.
And stickers has a series of  other commercials
where they incorporate
other wrestlers as well.
With wrestling, people are actively 
monitoring for instances of wrestling.
If a commercial has the appearance of wrestling
it's more likely to break through 
their top-down attention.
Plus, these commercials are 
better from a viewer standpoint.
A lot of the times, commercials are a chore
where we need to wait until marketers are done 
spewing their message at us.
And so with these commercials 
that inject the message into the show itself
they have a lot more relevance 
and they're a lot more entertaining.
Now this approach can become 
deceptive and go too far.
If you're driving in the car listening to the radio
it's not too uncommon to hear
an advertisement contain the sound of a horn.
[horn sound with voiceover] "At the end of the day, everybody wants to be home for Jeopardy."
While you're driving, the sound of a horn 
is part of your top-down attention.
So whenever you hear that sound
you automatically orient your attention to find the 
source of where that sound is coming from.
And lo and behold, the marketer just
accomplished their goal
by fixating your attention on that advertisement.
A similar example , yet a little more acceptable 
is this commercial from Amazon.
They played this commercial during the end of Survivor.
And during that final commercial break, survivor usually comes back with a preview for the next episode.
So during that break, viewers are actively
monitoring for the end of Survivor.
And so this scene appears for the ending of Survivor
and suddenly you orient your attention back to the TV
but then you keep watching and you realize that wait . . .
this is just a commercial 
for Amazon Fire TV.
And so in all these examples, 
you had a goal where you were looking for a red X.
And right now marketers, try to capture your attention 
by increasing the saturation of a green O
which not only doesn't work, but usually backfires because it's easier for you to block out.
but we're starting to see 
a trend in marketing
where marketers are starting to realize this
and they're starting to instead 
break through your top-down attention
by resembling that red X . . . so
that goal that you currently have.
And you know, I started this section with
rosy expectations for this principle
but after this whole explanation, 
I'm starting to realize this principle
has a lot of room for deception and so I'm
starting to have second thoughts about it
but I guess we'll see where it goes. 
Anyway, last principle.
Triggers and spreading activation.
So if you watch the Superbowl in 2018
then you probably saw this commercial for Tide.
Now I thought their strategy was pretty obvious,
but after reading 
some of the commentary online,
it seemed like a lot of people missed the key purpose and strategy behind this commercial.
So Tide created this commercial in order 
to get the biggest bang for their buck
from that absurdly expensive 
time slot in the Super Bowl.
And here's how they did it.
They start with some ambiguous 
scenes that are very stereotypical
["Yeah, just a typical Super Bowl car ad, right?]
And they leave you guessing as to what the 
commercial is actually advertising
which is another psychological hook, 
but that's beside the point.
Eventually they reveal that the
commercial is advertising Tide.
["It's a Tide ad"]
Because everybody is wearing clean clothes.
["What makes it a Tide ad?"]
["There are no stains."]
And at this point, they proceed
to other stereotypes
for diamonds, sodas, razors
and many other scenes that are very common and stereotypical in many commercials.
Finally, by the end of the commercial,
they end with this crucial message.
["So, does this make every Super Bowl ad a Tide ad?"]
And that's where the cleverness comes into play.
Throughout the commercial, Tide created a 
strategic network of associations.
Now, I explain the concept of 
spreading activation in another video,
but essentially, Tide created a connection 
between their commercial and their brand
and every other commercial during the Super Bowl.
And because of those connections, 
every time that you were exposed
or every time that you watched 
a commercial during the Super Bowl
that connection triggered spreading activation 
back to the original Tide commercial.
So Tide was able to take their short time slot, 
a mere 60 seconds
and extend the impact of  that commercial 
across the entire duration of the Super Bowl
so every time that you watched a commercial, 
it triggered you to think back to Tide.
So well played, Tide.
So that was some psychology behind commercials.
If you want to learn more psychology, 
you can subscribe to my channel
or you can get a copy of my book, 
Methods of Persuasion
