Friday Research: Don't Threaten Me With Your Ad, Or I Will Forget You

When Will You Use This?  

Creating advertisements and marketing promotions.

What’s The Red-Letter Bite Today? 

Marketing research has established that most people buy something because they remember a persuasive ad for it. 

Current series of experiments* examine motivated forgetting of identity-linked promotions (defined as marketing promotions that target consumers based on a social identity). As authors say, “identity-linking occurs, for example, when firms strategically use a particular gender or race as spokespersons or actors in ads or offer sales promotions like “10% discount for senior citizens” or “Ladies receive 1 free drink.” Because these promotions are personally relevant and offer financial benefits, target consumers should be inclined to pay attention to and encode them.”

Researchers demonstrate that consumers remember the least when they feel the most threatened. It’s a natural defense mechanism.

Addition To Your Bag of Tricks    

 

Most consumer decisions are memory based. It is natural that people pay attention and remember better those promotions which capitalize on their social identity. Following current research, remember that people are motivated to forget the ads that are threatening their identity that’s why you should be very careful developing and including any sensitive subjects of religion, race, political believes, etc in your campaigns.

*Amy N. Dalton and Li Huang. “Motivated Forgetting in Response to Social Identity Threat.” Journal of Consumer Research: April 2014 {Thanks for the material}

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