Thoughtful Thursday - Shrewd Marketing Tactics

Hello and welcome to Thoughtful Thursday; the day of the... hang on? Thoughtful Thursday? Yes, the day of the week where I tell you about the clever little things that marketers do, and then explain why the day's name changed.

Before you ask... those pixelated patches are intentional. I'm not up for people being mad at me for "casting their company in bad light." Better safe than sorry as they say.

Have you ever wondered about a strange advert, or had an absolutely irritating catchphrase stuck in your head for hours on end? If so, you're pretty much a victim of shrewd marketing tactics in which marketers around the world abuse the way your head works to improve their publicity. Interesting no?

Here's the thing, marketers have one goal; get people to think about the product or service. They will use any dirty trick and manipulate any strangeness that the human mind holds in order to accomplish that goal. Well... mostly. The problem with marketing is that there's no room to be nice about it. If you fail to make the advert stick in a persons mind, you're not being a nice person, you're failing at your job. So to be fair, they have to do it. On the other hand, I hate that because of how effectively some of them do it.

Consider radio adverts that you've listened to over the years. Are there any that spring immediately to mind? Perhaps a catchy jingle or a specific phrase that sung in a certain way? That's successful marketing since you can still remember it. (Or not if you can't.) An unmemorable advert, is a crap advert, to be blunt. I can think of various radio adverts ranging from bathroom furniture to plumbers that have used irritating catchphrases and songs to ensure they got stuck in your head. (Thank goodness for Unhearit.com) One of the more notorious marketing scheme's employed in South Africa was a range of "Steve adverts" in which a bank advertised themselves through a telemarketer named Steve; who continually failed to sell the services of another bank as those he called told him about the bank that had commissioned the adverts. It got bad enough that one of final "Steve" adverts involved a man complaining about said adverts to his friend. (*facedesk*) It was brilliant marketing, but I think I speak for many when I want to bash my head against a wall just thinking about it.

Other adverts use other strange tactics to get you to remember them. Some TV adverts involve people doing stupid things or a somewhat less legal method called "Subliminal Advertising" which involves placing strange things into adverts so that you subconsciously know something is wrong in the advert, but can't consciously tell what, and thereby continue to think about it. They'd do that in a variety of ways such as giving a woman an extra leg or their shadow pointing in the wrong direction. Usually small things that you wouldn't notice consciously with a passing glance.

There's also shock and awe tactics as I call them, in which the marketers do something absolutely unbelievable or against social norms to cause outrage. Various celebrities are notorious for this specific tactic, such as certain child stars who shall not be named, suddenly dancing in a very sexual and suggestive way, or doing music video's naked. As many reasons as they may give for doing so, the fact that so many people got angry about it and voiced their disgust publicly on the internet caused many more people who probably wouldn't have cared, to suddenly take interest and go watch said video. It's a very manipulative idea that can backfire if the marketer goes too far, but it's also very effective.

So why do they make such irritating adverts? Because people talk about it. A common phrase among online content creators of all kinds is that: "positive feedback doesn't exist, but negative feedback is a minority." Which, to a degree, explains this same marketing phenomenon. All those irritating songs or stupid adverts you saw, didn't make you think: "Oh, that's cool." That annoyed you and made you angry. Negative emotions are very powerful in people, so by playing off of that, the marketing is more successful. Not exactly a very nice way to do things, but it works rather well.

So the next time you get annoyed at an ad, perhaps take a moment to laugh at the fact that you're doing exactly what the marketers wanted when they designed the advert; and admire their skill at manipulating you to do so. Do you know of any other strange marketing strategies that they use; or perhaps want to let me know your thoughts on the new Thursday segment? Make sure to let me know in the comments below, and don't forget to share this with any friends who have been getting angry with adverts lately. They might appreciate the irony. Also, if you found this interesting and would like to see more like it, make sure to let me know by liking my Facebook page and/or following me on Twitter so that you can get the latest posts as I make them. Lastly, I thank you for taking the time to read this article; hope that you have/had and absolutely FANTASTIC day, and I will see you tomorrow.

Adiós amigos.

As it turns out, I actually forgot to mention why I changed the day's name. (Whoops. Sorry about that. Guess I really got into today's topic.) Turns out there's only so much acting theory you can talk about until you end up sitting wondering what on earth is left. Thoughtful Thursday gives me a proper day to talk about interesting things in the world without constraining me to any single topic, which is good for my rather spontaneous thoughts. Don't fret though, I will likely end up speaking about acting occasionally on either Thursdays, Fridays or Saturdays in the future, when I have a reasonable topic to do so.