Mmmm! I know that tastes good... I've seen the ad!

 By Katkamin

For anybody who worries that the advertising and marketing industry is artificially creating insatiable wants in people, the latest edition of Wired magazine makes disturbing reading.

It describes a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, and it is all about how advertising can trick the part of the brain that deals with long-term memory (the hippocampus).

The experiment used 100 students and introduced them to a non-existent new product, Orville Redenbacher’s Gourmet Fresh Microwave Popcorn.  Some of them watched adverts based on slogans and text about how delicious it was; some of them watched what are called ‘high-imagery’ commercials, of happy people enjoying the popcorn at home. 

Then they were divided again.  Half went to a room and given a sample of the popcorn; half were just given a survey.  A week later, they were asked what they remembered.

Here’s the scary bit.  Those who watched the high-imagery ad were just as likely to say they tried the popcorn as those which actually did.

Even more scary, they rated the product just as highly as those who had actually tasted it.  Also they were extremely confident about their memories.  They knew why they liked it – not because of the advert, but because it tasted so good.

This whole story is disturbing on a whole range of levels.  But one of them is just how subversive the system is.  It desperately tries to keep economic growth higher by selling us things we don’t actually want, and our poor befuddled brains say ‘more!’.