Do you ever notice yourself humming a jingle from an advertisement? One you just can't get out of your head? I am SOOOO guilty of that, often. Thankfully the "FreeCreditReport.com" ads have eased up ... but for what felt like forever I would find myself unable to get this out of my head:
Sometimes it's not even a catchy jingle, or celebrity endorsement that draws me it. Like the time I was recovering from an awful cold in college back in Chicago; I was crossing the street and one of the "Streetwise" guys ,who normally just call out "Streetwise!" and try to get you to buy one for a dollar (perfectly good cause really, and worth the $1.00), looks at me as I am crossing the street in front of The Art Institute, coughing up a lung, and says "Streetwise will cure that cough!" I laughed so hard at that for some reason (which funnily enough made me cough even worse), and dug deep into my pockets to find $1.00. The guy totally earned it. Hell, he could have been selling used tinfoil and I would have thought it was a funny hook.
I find it amazing how many times I am in the grocery store and debating between various products and my brain just automatically replays visions of commercials and print ads. Like I might remember why one product is reportedly better than the other.
Staring at the laundry detergents:
"Hmmm, this one got that coffee stain out of that ladies shirt"....
"This one beat out the competition when trying to remove grass and ketchup stains, I should get this one"....
(mind you I have no idea when or where I would get grass & ketchup stains on my clothes, but if I ever do... I will be SO prepared!)
Y'all remember the last time I went on and on about Groupon? (It was in this post if you care for a refresher) Well, I still get at least one email daily from them... and the sad part is that they are mostly still for deals in London (*insert a super sad face here*), or they are just for things I have zero interest in, or time for in Boston. Today, however, at the bottom of the email there was something that I thought needed to be shared. In fact, if I wasn't already signed up for groupon deals in my area (as well as London, New Orleans, NYC, Chicago, and parts of CT) I would have signed up on the spot just because I enjoyed this so much:
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Do you ever find yourself, even subconsciously, paying attention to marketing/advertising? I know that industry makes the big bucks because they come up with some real winners. Granted, most of them are boring and lame as hell, but once in a great while they do such a good job that I suddenly feel an overwhelming urge to buy/own/use a specific product. Keep in mind I rarely even watch TV... but commercials like this:
Yeah, I ain't gonna lie... I kinda fell in love with Old Spice™ 'cause of that commercial. I don't even know/remember if I like the smell of it, but I will probably now eternally equate it with Isaiah Mustafa (the ridiculously handsome man in the ad) and think it's a great product.
There is the flip side to all this too. Make someone I detest a spokesperson for a product of some sort... yeah, never touchin' the stuff again. Example: make Tom Cruise the spokesperson for something I love, and I will never buy it again. (Or at least till someone new, that doesn't deserve to be in a looney bin, takes over.)
Makeup/skin care is probably the industry that relies the heaviest on "association." Think about it, are you going to buy something like a facial moisturizer, even if it claims to do all sorts of amazing things, if the spokesmodel looks like this:
OR like this:
Which commercials/ads have convinced you to buy something, or at least desire to check it out?
