Modern psychology slowly dictates how and what creatives sell
As advertisers, marketers and graphic designers, to name a few, we are all in the same business. The business of selling.We are employed to communicate our clients’ brand message/promise, which is usually their sales pitch for their product. Research has enabled us to recognize the product’s targeted market’s behavioral patters. This sort of pushes us to think of design from the consumers’ point of view.
When selling a product, we are now forced to focus on what the consumers want or want to hear instead of selling the ‘real’ benefits of a product.
Usage of modern psychology is advertising, marketing and graphic design has contributed much to understanding of people’s motivations to buying, which is mostly unconscious.
This has in a way has made the ‘traditional’ focus on a product sold, seem less effective.
Obviously, this affects the tone and imagery used in the selling materials we as ‘sellers’ create. Companies has shifted their focus and brand promise to try exploit common human desires to be: beautiful, successful and socially acceptable.
Brands that makes soap has shifted from selling what their product achieve, cleanliness. They instead focus on selling beauty.
Deodorant companies no longer promise consumers good hygiene, they now sell popularity, especially by the opposite sex.
Now when a creative gets employed to sell a male deodorant, the visual focus is no longer solely on the deodarant but some guy with few females behind him, drooling.
Hallo there, I just want to say that’s another way to look at our kind of job, I never thought about that, especially what you said about the beauty soap concentrating on the beauty, and the deodorant…
Does this actually mean we have to try and look at designing in this kind of way, to try and concentrate on the “beauty” instead of the “soap”, like shift the focus from the product? Will that help to make the product more successful?
Twanet,
From what we see, the ‘quickest’ way is for advertisers to try promise consumers what they’ve been ‘dying’ to hear: “your friends will think you’re cool” , “you’ll look beautiful” , “the opposite sex will find you irresistible” etc. instead of telling consumers that “this deodorant kills all known germs dead!”.
In a way it does help sell the product more, as I believe on an average person, emotions usually overpowers their common sense.