How Neuroscience Plays a Key Part in Advertising
The following is adapted from HYPNO-TISING by Mark Young.
The Goal of Advertising
The goal of every advertiser should be to maximize the results or investment in advertising while providing legitimate information to consumers.
Great communications should be crafted in a fashion that will help consumers overcome their own built-in biases and fears and lean into the mental shortcuts or heuristics of the consumer and motivate them to explore life-improving products and services.
Dr. Richard Bandler points out in several of his writings that the biggest human fear is the fear of change — what some refer to as the unknown. This fear of change is what keeps people stuck in negative situations. It is the old adage of “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.” This is the reason why a woman stays in an abusive relationship fearing life alone or without him, why the alcoholic fears change to a life without drinking, or why the worker stays stuck in a dead-end job for fear of the unknown, or the change to a new career (Richard Bandler Live Webinar, 2019).
This same fear of change drives consumers to continue to purchase the same goods and services even if they are inferior to new and more innovative products. This fear of change or the unknown, in many cases, prevents people from changing to the products or services that will benefit their life.
While these fears exist, they are not typically conscious or considered decisions. In fact, people frequently do not make buying decisions for logical reasons. In many cases, individuals do not even realize or understand why they purchase the things that they do.
Why Do We Need Hypnotic Language in Advertising?
In our agency, we’ve often seen clients who have a product or service that will benefit people, so they believe that just informing the general public will lead to sales. Unfortunately, that’s simply not the case.
A major issue that marketers face today is one of advertising clutter. A study by Media Dynamics shows that the average person is exposed to 5,000 to 20,000 advertising messages per day. Not all of these come in the form of a TV or radio ad. Many are web based, or outdoor signage. To compound the flood of media, we have packaging that is advertising to us. A simple walk in the spaghetti sauce aisle will give you up to 50-plus different ad impressions just for that one simple item.
But the challenge is even bigger than just this. Media Dynamics’ research shows us that if we assume the lower number of 5,000 ad impressions per day, the average person will receive 362 of them. Out of this, only 153 will actually be noted.
Of the 153, only 86 will have any level of awareness, meaning the consumer recognizes or acknowledges the message. Now here is the really bad news: out of the 86, only 12 of them will make an impression, which does not mean the consumer actually responded to the offer.
Every advertiser’s goal should be to land in the 12 messages that a consumer has a reaction to and to motivate that consumer to take action. To improve the odds of doing so, we can use the techniques of hypnotherapists. They reach past the conscious mind to the unconscious mind and help make immediate changes in behavior and belief systems. Imagine your advertising having the same type of authority as that (and NLP) to change the way a person thinks and feels after seeing your message. How powerful would that be?
So, when we think of Hypno-tising, we are using words and images to create an immediate change in a person’s behavior.
The Concerns about Neuroscience in Advertising
Some people challenge the ethics of using subliminal techniques to influence people to make a choice of one product over another. There have been some activists that have called for an abandonment of the use of neuroscience in advertising. The claim is that it is wrong for marketers to use such techniques to persuade the public to buy products or services (Stanton et al., 2014). Their fear, however unfounded, is that these techniques could be used to sell products that are of no value to the consumer. However, we see evidence that regardless of the underlying techniques employed in communications, it is nearly impossible to sell a product to someone who has no need for it. To put it simply, you’re never going to be able to sell arthritis medicine or treatments to someone who does not suffer from arthritis — no matter what advertising technique you utilize.
The activists’ argument is that advertising communications should be limited to descriptive narratives, where the only information being shared consists of simple facts or details about the given subject.
The execution of such a practice would be nearly impossible. First, who would be the governing body responsible for monitoring or passing judgment on this? Second, imagine the sheer volume of advertising messages being created on a daily basis. This would number into the millions. Developing a workforce with the high level of skill and education necessary to review every communication would literally be impossible.
Finally, what would be the criteria for approval? One person’s opinion of a metaphor could well be another person’s artistic portrayal. And if hypnotic language is as covert as these detractors claim it is, how would they even detect it?
The Supreme Court case Jacobellis v. Ohio is a good demonstration of how impossible this task would be. In 1963, Nico Jacobellis was charged with two counts of possession and exhibiting obscene material in his Ohio movie theater.
Jacobellis was found guilty by the Cuyahoga County Court and the conviction was upheld by the Ohio Court of Appeals and the Ohio Supreme Court. The case eventually made its way to the US Supreme Court based on a violation of constitutional rights.
The Supreme Court ruled that the film was not obscene. The point to follow here is that there were four different opinions written, not including the majority opinion, and that no single opinion had more than two justices in agreement.
One of the most famous of these opinions was written by Justice Potter, when he said that he could not describe what pornography is, but he would know it when he saw it.
If nine Supreme Court justices cannot agree on the definition of pornography, it is doubtful that you would ever create a standard to identify the difference between information and persuasion.
The truth is all the advertising in the world will not keep bad products or services alive for long. You just cannot sell products to people who do not identify them as a need! So, it really is difficult to sell air conditioning at the North Pole or get someone to buy dog food when they do not own a dog. In contrast to this, we see that people have many complex, underlying issues and fears and that these fears often prevent a person from exploring new products or possibilities that will improve the quality of their lives.
To summarize: The goal is not to sell people things they do not want or need. The true goal of great advertising is to inform potential customers who have a need for the product or service that a new solution to their need exists, and to help them overcome their own resistance to change.
By using NLP and improving the ability to persuade people to embrace or accept change, we can improve their lives while providing an improved business atmosphere for deserving companies that have made innovative products.
For more advice on advertising, you can find HYPNO-TISING on Amazon.
Mark is a serial entrepreneur and polymath with interests in advertising, media, consumer products, human performance and longevity, geo-politics, and real estate development. He leveraged his education and passion for neuroscience, persuasion, neuro-linguistic programming, and hypnosis to build Jekyll + Hyde Labs into one of the nation’s most successful advertising agencies for challenger and emerging brand consumer products.
The genesis of HYPNO-TI$ING lies in Young’s doctoral thesis, “Leveraging Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Hypnotic Patterns, and Behavioral Science to Trigger Consumer Response.” When he isn’t driving triple-digit speeds on an auto racing course, flying planes, or road-tripping on his motorcycle, Young lives and travels between Michigan and Florida with his wife, Sally. He can be contacted at myoung@JandHLabs.com.
