Chapter 3. Marketing Psychologist?

Yes, Virginia, there are such things as marketing psychologists.

It is an accredited psychology degree, not surprisingly, with a focus on marketing. These psychologists analyze how consumers feel about a product regarding pricing, color, packaging, etc., among hundreds of other preferences and triggers, to help companies position their products and services to create or increase their market share. They study what influences any marketing campaign by reviewing the culture on consumer trends, to target their audience better.

A long time ago, it was discovered that when marketing uses emotional and psychological appeals in advertising their products, these appeals resonate more with consumers than when promoting any single function or feature. In other words, educating consumers about how it can make them feel or solve their problems is more effective than highlighting the products’ qualities. In effect, these psychologists learned to influence customers’ behavior by planting emotional ideas.

Consider, for instance, way back in 1781, when the contents of Thrale’s Brewery were being auctioned off by Samuel Johnson, who said, ‘’We are not here to sell boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice.’’ In this example, it is evident he was using the marketing psychology method long before it became popular in our world—and it yielded excellent results then, as it does now.
To effectively maximize the marketing strategy, the marketing psychologist needs to understand the factors that affect human behavior. They learn how people think, and what will overshadow their competitors who only advertise their goods and services, without tapping into the customers’ emotions.

Marketing Basics
There are rudimentary psychological tactics employed by almost every marketer to influence consumers’ decisions when purchasing products and services. Most of these are obvious, and we are very aware of them.

Geographical
Location, location, location is a significant factor in the decision to purchase a product. To state one obvious example, people who live in the polar regions of the Earth have no need for sandals. The geolocation of goods and services is merely location-specific, just like the key lime pie from your favorite vacation hot spot.

Age
A customer’s age can influence their desire to purchase a good or service. As a person’s age increases, their needs and willingness change, and therefore the things that appeal to them also change. It is a waste of time to advertise a skateboard to a cantankerous old man—even if it would be fun to see him riding one.

Gender
Marketing psychologists also consider consumers’ gender when determining how goods and services will be designed and communicated to them. Obviously, advertising feminine hygiene products would not be optimal in an all-boys school.

Socio-economic status
Also known as “SELs” in market research lingo, this refers to the classification of people by their social, economic, and educational status. This also often includes their lifestyles, values, and behaviors, which are combined into what are called “socio-economic/lifestyles.”

Belief system
What an individual believes usually influences the kind of goods and services they will purchase. For instance, no matter the packaging and grandeur of pork, a devoted Muslim will never buy it. Beliefs are very powerful, and they significantly affect everything consumers purchase.

Color
In the distant past, advertisements of goods and services were created in black and white. However, since leaving the Stone Age, many researchers have discovered that the human mind attaches a given emotion to colors, which affects the mood of every individual. Based on this discovery, marketers have learned to use suitable colors to market their products. Although each person attaches meanings to colors subjectively, some general feelings are associated with each color:

Red is often associated with danger, passion, excitement, warmth, and energy. It can be used to arouse people’s sexuality and raise blood pressure. So, today’s marketers often use red to indicate strength, courage, vigor, and eroticism.

Purple portrays royalty, nobility, mystery, luxury, and spirituality. This effect on the brain has made mental health officials adopt it for psychiatric health care. Conversely, purple can also be associated with decadence, conceit, and arrogance. It is commonly used to target women. I will let you review that as you see fit.

Pink is often linked with happiness, sensuality, and hope. Pale pink is generally accepted as the color of little girls, as it represents sweetness; light pink is romantic, while dusty pink is sentimental. Hot pink represents excitement, energy, youthfulness, and fun. The pink palette is often used to stimulate energy in various ways. One unexpected way is to calm violent prisoners in jail cells.

Blue is arguably the most universally favored color, as it is used to communicate trustworthiness, reliability, intelligence, understanding, authority, and organizational bureaucracy. It is believed that, due to its association with the sky and the sea, blue tends to be interpreted as calm and harmonious. Oddly enough, though, blue is also used to express depression or sadness. In the early days of our 1960s political campaigning, long before we had red states and blue states, the most favored color—according to market psychologists—was known as “public opinion” blue. Again, I’ll leave you to read into that as you wish.

Yellow is connected with optimism, cheerfulness, playfulness, and happiness. Being the color of sunshine, it communicates vigor and delight. It stimulates mental action, generates muscle oomph, and creates a warming effect. Bright yellow is used for cautionary purposes because the human eye processes it immediately upon seeing it.

Orange is formed from the mixture of red and yellow. It communicates strength, efficiency, dependence, and reasonable pricing. On many occasions, orange is associated with tropical weather, determination, and creativity. It also stimulates the appetite.

Green represents nature and the environment; it also signifies financial stability and wealth. Darker shades of green indicate wealth, prestige, and abundance, while lighter shades represent vitality, renewal, and growth.

If we consider that Starbucks’s use of green as the primary color of its brand identity is meant to promote a sense of relaxation from its highly caffeinated products, we can easily see how the cafes appeal to customers who choose to take coffee breaks during their most “stressful” times.

Be that as it may, many major global brands have utilized the emotional pull of color to make their brands more appealing. McDonald’s chose high-energy colors (yellow and red) for their brand identity. These bright, primary colors make the brand appealing to children while creating a sense of urgency. Ronald McDonald’s, although popular with kids, also gives parents unease that works to Micky D’s benefit, as these colors facilitate customer turnover and thus increased profits. The color selection also increases appetite, and this is why it is easy for them to market all those unhealthy foods. Can you imagine if they had used a healthy green for example? I suspect their brand may not have been as successful.
On the other hand, let’s look at Facebook’s blue, which suits well to communicate sincerity and solidness of its brand: Pushing Emotional Ideas.

Nature vs. Nurture
As if to make things even more complicated, we must also consider, in our psychological mix, the debate over nature versus nurture. There have been hundreds of books written on this psychology concern, which, I am sure you have heard of: which particular aspects of behavior are the more powerfully determinant: inherited genetic characteristics, or acquired, that is, learned, characteristics?