If you've ever been mesmerized by an ad, a growing cadre of brand experts want to explore your, er, emanations.
Subjecting consumer focus groups to hypnosis in order to discover TRUE feelings about brands is gaining popularity on both coasts of America, according to a recent Brandweek article. Proponents claim that it enables them to "..find out the imprint of the brand" and "...to get to a deeper, more emotional place."
Your eyes are getting heavy...
Anton Mesmer discovered animal magnetism in the late 1700s, believing that the flow of some vital fluid through our bodies could be fed and manipulated to cure mental and physical afflictions. He built weird devices that moved people into strange fits or bland disbelief, depending often on their expectations, and he's credited with being perhaps not so much the father of hypnotism, but perhaps its crazy uncle.
Now, perhaps it turns out that he's a patron saint of the new branding.
As if trying to manipulate conscious minds -- and decision-making -- weren't enough, a number of practitioners claim to help brands discover their levers of subconscious influence. "People can describe the cookies their mother made them when they were 5 in great detail," explains one expert. "This drives adult behavior."
Brands like Volvo, Dewar"s, and "blue-chip beer, soda and telecom companies" (none of them named Rosebud) supposedly swear by it. And, while a vocal minority of people refuse to sign-on (those naggingly literal ROI heathens), I think this could be a brilliant solution to the age-old questions about finding and verifying branding.
I say we marketers should wholly embrace the paranormal sciences:
- Remote viewing: Who needs to ask consumers questions directly, even if they're swooning in a magnetic daze, when you can hire adepts to watch them from afar?
- Telekinesis: A practitioner strategically placed in a grocery aisle could move that six-pack into a shoppers cart as if by magic
- ESP: We could know if consumers were changing their minds before they themselves were aware of it
- Apparitions: Go past TV and game screens, and conjure 3D commercial fantasms that could sing and dance in homes and offices
- Precognition: Talk about taking the risk and uncertainty out of that next business plan!
- Telepathy: Imagine hiring a bank of experts who could convince entire civilizations to, say, buy your beer, or eat your taco chips?
- Seances: Why stop with manipulating the living? Think of how many names you could add to your dCRM tools?
Fringe science is rich with tools for brands. And, if you agree, perhaps you already know what I really think about the idea of hypnotizing consumers.
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