How Brand Manipulate and Trick You
Could you think of the last five purchases that you have made?
Whether you know it or not, nearly every single purchase you have ever made in your life is influence by psychological and other environmental factors that you may not be aware of.
Most businesses use a lot of tricks to get you to buy anything.
Here, we are going to point eight techniques used by Brands to sell their products :
Branding :
150,000 years ago, humans exchanged goods and services. Initially, transactions were based on a barter system where individuals used to trade goods and services but as civilization grew up, so did the evolution of commerce and trading.
In 2700 BC, ancient Egyptian were trading livestock. As the trading of livestock grew, it resulted in the frequency of stolen livestock too.
That’s when the Egyptians came up with a way to differentiate one person’s livestock from another and identify if someone stole their goods. After then the Egyptians began branding their livestock with unique symbols for their goods to stand out amongst all other similar goods and that was the birth of branding.
Which was the first psychological trick that businesses still use today to get you to buy their product.
I have a question for you, why Nike is worth 208.46 Billion Dollars today?
Is that because they make the highest quality shoes in the world, probably not.
What makes Nike worth $208.46 Billion, is its branding.
You are buying Nike Shoes because of their design and the swoosh logo on their side.
When people think of Nike, they think of Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Roger Federer, Ronaldo, and many more athletes of different sports. That’s because everyone has seen lots of Nike advertisements with these athletes on T.V wearing the Nike brand shoe.
This makes the Nike brand linked with well-known world-famous athletes in the mind of the public. So When a young adult goes to buy a pair of shoes they want to be like them, they want to feel a deeper connection with their shoes, they want to feel a part of something bigger than themselves, they want to be a part of Nike brand. That’s the reason why branding is so important because it is a unique psychology trick that creates a long-lasting impression in the mind of all its customer.
But not all purchases rely solely on branding and there is a larger psychological factor in determining whether a person will be a lifelong customer of a business or not.
Think about this, when you go to buy some groceries, do you care about the branding? 90% of customers use the same brand again and again unknowingly.
So why do customers stick to the same brands forever even if they don’t know any message behind the brand?
Let’s say, you bought ‘X’ brand’s chocolate to gift your girlfriend. Now you go on date with your girlfriend, you both shared the chocolate and have a great moment together. This experience will likely make you a customer of X brand for life. It’s because your brain has now associated this brand’s chocolate with a positive moment you had with your partner. From Next time you are likely to choose that same ‘X’ brand chocolate.
But if you had a bad moment on your date. Then your brain will make a negative association with this brand and you develop the feeling of hatred towards this brand. This is the power of association.
Why so many chocolate ads are made on the main theme of sharing happiness and positive feeling? It’s because these ads will subconsciously tell our brains that this chocolate will help them make a good moment with loved ones.
Give, Give, Give and ask :
Let’s say your neighbour helps you trim the grass on your lawn. After this help, you have a good relationship with that neighbour. If he asks you that he could be your real estate agent? I think it’s hard for you to say no.
It’s because this neighbour provided value to you and it’s hard to refuse the offer made by these people.
This is called the “give give give” and ask principle popularized by Garry Vaynerchuk. The businesses give the customer so much value for free that some of the customers feel psychologically obligated to make a purchase.
You can see this on a platform like YouTube where there are tons of creators who have created hundreds of free valuable content.
Sometimes they do ask their viewers to buy their product or merchandise and many buy their product because they have provided value.
So the “give give give “ and ask principle is a psychological trick that is commonly used by smaller business and solo entrepreneurs.
Power of Scarcity
Business creates a circumstance where you have a limited time to decide on a purchase and if you don’t make a purchase then you may miss out on this deal entirely. Therefore resulting in your brain creating a what-if negative scenario that may be filled with regret.
Thus the business creates artificial urgency in the customer’s brain to increase their sales or revenue.
This trick especially applies in luxury industries. The luxury car market is known for running on the rule of scarcity. Some models of cars like the 1957 Ferrari,250 Testa Rossa have only 34 of them in circulation.
This extreme undersupply of this car creates a mindset of scarcity for prospective buyers. It means that someone who wants to buy this model of car might be willing to pay a lot more for it because they know there are only 34 of them in the world. This mindset of scarcity around the Testa Rossa has inflated the price of this one car to 40 million dollars each and this is a perfect example of how some businesses create artificial scarcity to create higher price or sales of their product.
Perceptive innovation
Keypad phones had been around for about ten years but then Steve Jobs revealed a completely new and innovative screen touch mobile. The new mobile had its operating system and web browser.
When it was released customers attached to it because it was a device that was novel, innovative and filled a big need in the marketplace. All of a sudden consumers could buy one product that had a wide variety of capabilities. The meaning of these psychological factors is that sometimes the consumer perceives that there’s one product on the market which is so much better than every other option.
The consumer knows there’s only one obvious choice for their purchase.
Before iPhone, LG released a phone called LG Prada which was very similar to the iPhone in a lot of ways. But the public perception of these two phones was very different. The LG Prada was viewed as a next-generation phone from LG. While the iPhone was viewed as a one of a kind product that can be useful to people. So, customers loved iPhone over Prada because it was a friendly product for them.
Perceived value and pricing
Innovation is left in the dust by this psychological trick which is called perceived value and pricing.
Let’s say you are an iPhone user and love the iPhone because of its design and innovation. You need to buy new mobile and see that iPhone 11 cost you more than $1100 and right next to the iPhone you see a similar phone a google pixel 4 costing $200. Now all of a sudden you have to weigh your option.
You know that these two phones are very similar. On one side you have the iPhone which you have loved and on the other side, you have a google pixel which is a similar phone but with a much lower price.
In this case, people will buy Google Pixel because they get more value in less money.
So if two products are somewhat equal but one costs much less, the customer is more likely to choose the cheaper product because they think they are getting more bang for their buck. That’s the reason why the sale of phones like Mi, Poco, Redmi are increasing.
Persuasion
If you are a solo entrepreneur or you had a local business or say you are a freelancer, you may be figuring out ways to get more sales or client. The power of persuasion can help you figure out more sales or client.
So, What is Persuasion and how it can help?
Persuasion is convincing others to change their point of view, agree to a commitment, purchase a product or service, or take a course of action.
Let’s say a salesperson comes to your house and wants to sell you a vacuum cleaner. He says a vacuum cleaner is more suitable for you because it will save your time, it’s easier to clean, a lot of your neighbours bought the same vacuum. And that salesperson shows you how it works and then he says something like how would you like to pay? This question limits your response choice.
That’s a persuasion technique used by the salesperson. Though you had no interest in a new vacuum cleaner, the salesperson persuaded you that you might want or need a new one.
Need and Convenience
Let’s say you have a 10-page essay due in two hours but you go to check your printer and you only have 3 pieces of paper left. In these circumstances, you need 7 pieces of paper so you look around for the quickest way to get that paper and you see that the only option is the convenience store across the street that sells some office supplies.
Normally for you, printer paper costs about $8 a pack but the store near you only sells it for $15 a pack. Now because you have a need and the store is your only option to get paper quickly, you are willing to pay the extra $7.
That is the power of Need and convenience. We have seen many eCommerce companies providing delivery service on purchase.
Morality
Another trick business used to make people purchase their product is morality.
Some businesses have a business model that makes the consumer feel like If they buy their product, they are doing something good for the world.
Businesses tell their customers that they will donate to a charity if anyone buys their product. The businesses also convey the message that their product is better for the world. These are products like more efficient light bulbs, biodegradable plastic and eco friendly vehicles.
However, some companies take advantage of this by providing the customer with a false sense of morality.
