Some friends mentioned "IQ tax" products that are closer to daily life: Starbucks Cat Claw Cup (the original price 199 was hyped to thousands of dollars, but it was still snapped up), and the early online celebrity "YSL lipstick" and so on. Marketing agencies will tell consumers with such consumerist chicken soup:
Women should be kind to themselves/women should learn to invest in themselves/women should be financially independent, buy whatever they want and spend whatever they want!
Men also have corresponding slogans:
Men love women only because they bought them in buy buy. The men who refuse to spend money for their girlfriends are all love rat. /I am responsible for making money to support my family, and you are responsible for being beautiful.
There are also some controversial "IQ tax" products, such as lottery tickets, because its winning probability is really not equal to the income. There are even some "senior" lottery players who study various probabilities and combinations in the lottery shop after work every day. Therefore, many people think that buying lottery tickets is purely an IQ tax, but there are also different voices, saying that buying lottery tickets is not an investment behavior, but should be regarded as entertainment and public welfare behavior.
No matter what kind of goods, whether it is "IQ tax" or not, the benefits of products will be vigorously promoted in advertisements. We keep saying that others pay "IQ tax", but we are actually showing our sense of superiority, just like the contempt chain that is common in the network. In real life, it is difficult for each of us not to be harvested by merchants. All kinds of advertisements, some pretend to be experts, some offer false discounts, and some use hunger marketing to seize people's scarcity psychology. So what can be done to fundamentally resist the erosion of advertising routines?
Recently, I read the book "Psychology of Lying", which mentioned the principle behind merchants' "cheating" consumers with advertisements. It also gave me a deeper understanding of the topic of "IQ tax".
This passage is about how commodities lie to us. The principle behind it is the placebo effect. Placebo effect refers to the phenomenon that although patients get ineffective treatment, they "expect" or "believe" that the treatment is effective, thus alleviating the symptoms of patients.
As we all know, what can we do to win the recognition of consumers and sell better?
It is nothing more than improving the quality of goods and reducing costs. In short, the cost performance is higher.
Then if there is no big breakthrough in quality, the cost will not come down. Another way is "cheating", which makes users feel that his cost performance is better in an exaggerated way-so there is advertising. There are many forms of advertisements, such as TV, posters, product packaging and celebrity endorsements. Of course, advertising has other functions, such as advertising, improving product exposure and so on. This paper mainly discusses the psychological influence of advertisements on consumers. )
Therefore, according to the Psychology of Lying, advertisements are used to deceive people-only this kind of deception, like a placebo in medicine, has a positive effect-and consumers are truly satisfied.
It is mentioned in the book that enriching the symbolic value of a brand through advertising is a more environmentally friendly way to improve products than using more or better materials. Therefore, advertising can reasonably "cheat" consumers, and consumers are willing to be cheated. The key is whether satisfactory symbolic value has been created.
Corresponding to the symbolic value is the functional value of the product.
A car claims that its design and production serve high performance, racing characteristics and strong power. Is this symbolic value or functional value? -There is no doubt that the functional value.
A car claims to be designed, produced and served with high performance, racing characteristics and strong power. We serve the pleasure of driving to the letter. Our cars represent the highest technical level of passenger cars, and our brand concept is a symbol of successful men. Is this symbolic value or functional value? -Extended symbol values.
Therefore, we find that symbolism is based on functional value first.
Let's give another example. A car claims to be cheap, spacious, convenient for people to pull goods, and also provides 7/8 seats. Is this a symbolic value or a functional value? There is no doubt that it is also a functional value.
Then the manufacturer claims that our car represents the highest technical level of domestic passenger cars, and our brand concept is a symbol of successful men. Does this advertisement have symbolic value? That's true, but it's worthless because no one believes it. How can you pull a successful man if you can lead someone to pull goods?
The car in the first example is an advertisement of BMW, and the symbolic value of "successful person" is extended and matched through the functional value created or displayed by it. The second example is the advertisement of Wuling Hong Guang. Its functional value determines what value it will develop to.
Based on the above, let's summarize the knowledge of extracting integral in this chapter of the book:
1, the symbolic value should be based on the functional value, which should match the former;
2. The purpose of advertising is to make the product have symbolic value, so that consumers can believe and agree and be willing to use it;
3. Symbolic value can make consumers have a placebo effect after using it-obviously it has no effect, but it has the expected effect.
To sum up, take it apart for your own use. If you pay more attention to the functional value, you can think about what you want behind the function when you shop around in the future. Which product makes you feel this way more?
For example, I used to be a "severely difficult takeaway". Every time I am alone at home, I will order takeout if I am too lazy to cook. But often when the US delegation is hungry, it will switch and watch for more than half an hour without deciding what to eat. Later, after reading the book Psychology of Lying, I learned the concept of symbolic value, and suddenly understood the reason why I was entangled in ordering food. Not knowing what you want to eat is essentially not knowing what you want to symbolize value. Later, I looked at the dishes I ordered in the past-every time it was different, and every time I ordered strange dishes that I had never eaten-and finally understood that the symbolic value of my order for takeout was to be a person who pursued novelty and adventure. So I stopped worrying when I ordered takeout later. I have tasted everything I haven't eaten, and I haven't thought much about the consequences of food spoilage or wrong ordering.
On the other hand, if you pay more attention to symbolic value, then when you buy things in the future, you should see if its function can keep up with his declared symbolic meaning.
Give an example of yourself. A few years ago, I was keen to buy all kinds of beautiful manuals, such as annual plans, punch cards, reading notes, time management manuals ... but each one wrote several pages and then put them on the desk to eat ash. Now that I think about it, I know I attach too much importance to the symbolic value of "being a self-disciplined, planned and organized time manager"-but I don't understand that these books can't help me improve my time management and get rid of procrastination in essence.
Of course, what is not mentioned in the book is that advertisements can "cheat" consumers for legitimate reasons, but in reality, too many unscrupulous businesses use this to trap consumers, fool consumers and implement real deception without double quotation marks.
Back to the case of "IQ tax" mentioned at the beginning, whether it is cat claw cup, explosive lipstick, physical therapy mattress or quantum fluctuation reading method, do the contents promoted by these goods really have symbolic value? Are their functional values qualified? As "placebos", can they really make consumers feel better, or will they hurt consumers like poison?
Therefore, in addition to applying the above two shopping principles, this book also gives us another inspiration, that is, to treat commercial advertisements critically. For example, we all know that the physical therapy mattress is actually lying to the elderly. But many elderly people really don't know that they have false and exaggerated ingredients? Maybe they just lack care for their children, and make up for the symbolic value of this inner desire in the only way they can-at least I still have some money for people to care about me.
The lottery is the same. Most people will despise people who buy lottery tickets and say that it is a proper IQ tax. But there are many ordinary blue-collar workers who don't smoke, drink, go whoring or gamble. Lottery tickets can buy happiness and hope for at least two days. If they can buy the symbolic value of happiness and hope so cheaply, why not?