1 00:00:06,310 --> 00:00:08,550 Hi, my name's Gavan Fitzsimons. I'm the R. 2 00:00:08,550 --> 00:00:12,570 David Thomas professor of marketing and psychology here at Duke University. 3 00:00:12,570 --> 00:00:15,834 today I'm going to be taking a little time to tell you about some of the work 4 00:00:15,834 --> 00:00:20,548 we do in our lab. focused around an issue that we like to 5 00:00:20,548 --> 00:00:24,685 call the unconscious consumer. And usually when I say the term 6 00:00:24,685 --> 00:00:28,162 unconscious consumer in one sort of, package like that, it starts to make 7 00:00:28,162 --> 00:00:32,636 people a little bit nervous. And I say, wait a second, I'm not 8 00:00:32,636 --> 00:00:37,263 unconscious when I'm in consumption mode. When I'm walking through a store, I know 9 00:00:37,263 --> 00:00:40,865 exactly what I'm doing. But I'm choosing between two autombiles, 10 00:00:40,865 --> 00:00:44,900 I know exactly what I'm doing. When I'm deciding whether to have that 11 00:00:44,900 --> 00:00:48,806 snack or take a pass, I know exactly what I'm doing. 12 00:00:48,806 --> 00:00:52,405 In fact, what I'm going to do today is try to convince you that far more is 13 00:00:52,405 --> 00:00:56,309 occurring outside your conscious awareness than you'd like to believe when 14 00:00:56,309 --> 00:01:01,475 you're in consumption mode. I thought I'd start out, I had sort of 15 00:01:01,475 --> 00:01:04,637 three little ideals that I'd like tell you about, but I though I'd start out 16 00:01:04,637 --> 00:01:09,52 with a personal anecdote. This is going back a little ways, to when 17 00:01:09,52 --> 00:01:13,290 I was a graduate student myself. I was I was living New York at the time, 18 00:01:13,290 --> 00:01:18,980 I was a graduate student at Columbia. And, it was a January night, it was maybe 19 00:01:18,980 --> 00:01:27,680 40ish degrees Fahrenheit, 2 or 3 Celsius and it was kind of drizzly and rainy out. 20 00:01:27,680 --> 00:01:32,80 I realized had I ran out of Diet Coke. This was quite a tragedy for me. 21 00:01:32,80 --> 00:01:36,153 I love Diet Coke. I needed to fill my fridge with Diet Coke 22 00:01:36,153 --> 00:01:39,544 immediately. So I was in short, soccer shorts, and a 23 00:01:39,544 --> 00:01:43,251 t-shirt and flip-flops. Fortunately in living in Manhattan theirs 24 00:01:43,251 --> 00:01:47,92 a deli sort of underneath every building. To get to my deli, I had to go out the 25 00:01:47,92 --> 00:01:49,560 front door, around the corner into the deli. 26 00:01:49,560 --> 00:01:54,274 And so out I went, money in hand, ready to purchase my 2 liter diet coke. 27 00:01:54,274 --> 00:01:57,794 Walked into the deli, nodded hi to the guy behind the counter, went over to the 28 00:01:57,794 --> 00:02:04,150 spot where the 2 liter Diet Coke was. But there was no 2 liter Diet Coke. 29 00:02:04,150 --> 00:02:07,801 I was taken aback. Empty spot where the 2 liter Diet Coke 30 00:02:07,801 --> 00:02:10,34 always was. So I leaned back to the fella behind the 31 00:02:10,34 --> 00:02:12,538 counter. I said, hey, can you grab a couple of, 2 32 00:02:12,538 --> 00:02:16,326 liter Diet Cokes? And he said, I can still hear his accent 33 00:02:16,326 --> 00:02:20,200 and everything in my mind. He said, I'm sorry. 34 00:02:20,200 --> 00:02:26,158 We're all out of 2 liter Diet Coke. Nothing could have been more horrible to 35 00:02:26,158 --> 00:02:29,472 me at the time. I love my Diet Coke and I love my 2 liter 36 00:02:29,472 --> 00:02:32,984 Diet Coke. He followed up with an interesting 37 00:02:32,984 --> 00:02:37,924 statement, which was, I'll give you 2 1-liter bottles of diet coke for the same 38 00:02:37,924 --> 00:02:42,548 price as a 2 liter bottle. I paused for a moment. 39 00:02:42,548 --> 00:02:47,150 I thought about it and I realized I didn't want 2 1-liter bottles of diet 40 00:02:47,150 --> 00:02:51,870 coke, I wanted a 2 liter bottle of diet coke. 41 00:02:51,870 --> 00:02:55,119 So I left in a little bit of a huff, walked out of the deli, walked up the 42 00:02:55,119 --> 00:02:59,473 street. Now, I think I mentioned, it was quite 43 00:02:59,473 --> 00:03:04,272 chilly and raining. I get up the block, go into the next 44 00:03:04,272 --> 00:03:07,94 deli. In New York there's a deli every block. 45 00:03:07,94 --> 00:03:11,50 went into the next deli, looked, no 2 liter diet coke. 46 00:03:11,50 --> 00:03:15,930 Went out another block, another deli, no 2 liter diet coke. 47 00:03:15,930 --> 00:03:17,860 At this point, I had a decision. Do I give up? 48 00:03:17,860 --> 00:03:21,612 Do I walk the whole way across the avenue which is maybe a quarter mile, a half a 49 00:03:21,612 --> 00:03:25,930 kilometer, something like that, to a dip, to another deli. 50 00:03:25,930 --> 00:03:31,560 I did so, I got there, walked in. They had 2 liter Diet Coke, fantastic. 51 00:03:31,560 --> 00:03:37,190 I bought 6 bottles of it. Now I had 6 bottles, 3 in each hand. 52 00:03:37,190 --> 00:03:41,969 Walking back across Columbia campus, soaking wet, freezing cold. 53 00:03:43,400 --> 00:03:47,235 Arms pulling out of their shoulder sockets and I realized, something bizarre 54 00:03:47,235 --> 00:03:51,10 has just happened to me. What was it? 55 00:03:51,10 --> 00:03:55,25 I was experiencing something that folks have called psychological reactance, and 56 00:03:55,25 --> 00:03:58,820 reactance is the, basically the idea that, when something's restricted, when 57 00:03:58,820 --> 00:04:02,120 freedom of my choice is restricted, I'm going to fight really hard to get it 58 00:04:02,120 --> 00:04:07,441 back. In that particular instance, it was the 59 00:04:07,441 --> 00:04:11,796 first personal anecdotal experience I'd ever had of a psychological process 60 00:04:11,796 --> 00:04:16,553 overpowering me, taking over my actions, leading to some, somewhat [LAUGH] strange 61 00:04:16,553 --> 00:04:24,300 consumption behavior all outside of my conscious awareness and control. 62 00:04:24,300 --> 00:04:28,578 And, that sort of triggered this notion of for me, of understanding forces that 63 00:04:28,578 --> 00:04:32,546 occur outside our conscious control, that might be shaping our consumption 64 00:04:32,546 --> 00:04:38,35 behavior. one of the interesting follow ups from 65 00:04:38,35 --> 00:04:43,170 that, sort of basic observation and line of work we did, was realizing that 66 00:04:43,170 --> 00:04:48,542 oftentimes the trigger for a restriction of a freedom aren't nearly as obvious to 67 00:04:48,542 --> 00:04:57,0 you as the lack of a 2 liter Diet Coke in it's spot in the store. 68 00:04:57,0 --> 00:05:00,481 So for example in a social domain we found that, and this is work with Amy 69 00:05:00,481 --> 00:05:05,195 Dalton and Tanya Chartrand. Tanya, who happens to be my wife once 70 00:05:05,195 --> 00:05:09,290 observed that I often don't do the things that she would like me to do and I 71 00:05:09,290 --> 00:05:13,515 expressed surprise at that observation on her part, and we ended up doing some 72 00:05:13,515 --> 00:05:19,627 research on the topic. And what we found was that there are 73 00:05:19,627 --> 00:05:23,592 certain people who chronically experience this notion of resistance to 74 00:05:23,592 --> 00:05:29,420 restrictions, on an automatic basis. And I actually, what we found was that 75 00:05:29,420 --> 00:05:34,460 myself and people like me that don't like to have their freedoms restricted will 76 00:05:34,460 --> 00:05:39,428 actually restrict or will react against what their significant others would like 77 00:05:39,428 --> 00:05:45,50 them to do. Your mom, your dad, your loved one, they 78 00:05:45,50 --> 00:05:48,890 would like you to say, work hard, for example. 79 00:05:48,890 --> 00:05:53,180 Alright, all it takes for some folks is to hear in the way background, the little 80 00:05:53,180 --> 00:05:58,450 background back there, the name of their significant other. 81 00:05:58,450 --> 00:06:01,920 The name of their mom or dad. Instead of actually doing the things that 82 00:06:01,920 --> 00:06:05,400 their mom or dad or loved one would like you to do, like work hard. 83 00:06:05,400 --> 00:06:10,215 You actually do the exact opposite. Completely outside conscious awareness 84 00:06:10,215 --> 00:06:12,899 sometimes. It's such a strong effect that we were 85 00:06:12,899 --> 00:06:16,321 able to subliminally prime, and subliminal is Latin for sub, meaning 86 00:06:16,321 --> 00:06:20,724 below and liminal meaning threshold so below threshold. 87 00:06:20,724 --> 00:06:24,466 Subliminally prime people with the name of their loved one. 88 00:06:24,466 --> 00:06:28,498 So much so that, or below their level of awareness so we prime them below their 89 00:06:28,498 --> 00:06:32,734 level of awareness. So in a way that their sort of optical 90 00:06:32,734 --> 00:06:36,760 system and their brain can recognize the name of the significant other, but at a 91 00:06:36,760 --> 00:06:41,26 conscious level they are not able to do so. 92 00:06:41,26 --> 00:06:44,834 so we activate in their minds the name of this significant other and then we put 93 00:06:44,834 --> 00:06:49,209 them in this situation where they could work hard or relax. 94 00:06:49,209 --> 00:06:52,867 For many people that experience psychological reactants on a regular 95 00:06:52,867 --> 00:06:55,857 bases. They actually backlashed against what 96 00:06:55,857 --> 00:06:59,839 their loved one wanted them to do, and did the exact opposite. 97 00:07:00,880 --> 00:07:03,410 Back into a consumption setting, we take that same kind of notion. 98 00:07:03,410 --> 00:07:08,720 So now, some of us are, are sort of, bristle at restrictions, don't like 99 00:07:08,720 --> 00:07:14,44 people to tell us what to do. Some of you that are, are watching this 100 00:07:14,44 --> 00:07:16,942 today might think to yourself, well I can sort of identify with that, I've about 101 00:07:16,942 --> 00:07:20,605 had it with people telling me what to do in certain spaces. 102 00:07:20,605 --> 00:07:25,193 So, some of you might have heard recently that you should, for example, eat 103 00:07:25,193 --> 00:07:28,250 healthy. And I bet if you've heard eat healthy 104 00:07:28,250 --> 00:07:30,860 once you've heard eat healthy a thousand times. 105 00:07:30,860 --> 00:07:34,840 Or exercise. You should exercise more, right. 106 00:07:34,840 --> 00:07:38,540 And again if you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times. 107 00:07:38,540 --> 00:07:43,212 As you repeatedly get exposed to those message in your life, for some of us, we 108 00:07:43,212 --> 00:07:48,722 build up a resistance to that message. And in fact, we want to do just the 109 00:07:48,722 --> 00:07:51,930 opposite of that. And that was sort of the underlying 110 00:07:51,930 --> 00:07:56,190 premise of some work that Peggie Lou, who's a PhD student with with me, started 111 00:07:56,190 --> 00:08:02,20 doing, looking at what we call indirect priming, or indirect persuasion. 112 00:08:02,20 --> 00:08:06,220 And so the idea here is that by sometimes, we're better to indirectly try 113 00:08:06,220 --> 00:08:10,560 to reach out to a person to a consumer and try to pursued them to do something 114 00:08:10,560 --> 00:08:18,328 that might be in their best interest by not triggering this backlash reaction. 115 00:08:18,328 --> 00:08:21,592 And so for example if we want you to eat healthy we have found that it's actually 116 00:08:21,592 --> 00:08:24,712 better to subliminally prime you with the message exercise, rather, then 117 00:08:24,712 --> 00:08:28,210 subliminally with the message eat healthy. 118 00:08:28,210 --> 00:08:34,69 If we subliminally prime you with the message eat healthy, some people will 119 00:08:34,69 --> 00:08:40,450 actually not eat healthy, they'll backlash against it. 120 00:08:40,450 --> 00:08:44,232 And, and so we find that these indirect means to try to persuade folks, can 121 00:08:44,232 --> 00:08:49,612 sometimes be more effective then a direct in your face kind of message. 122 00:08:49,612 --> 00:08:53,324 So, when your thinking about trying to eat healthy, when your thinking about 123 00:08:53,324 --> 00:08:57,384 trying to exercise in your own sort of lives think about what are the triggers 124 00:08:57,384 --> 00:09:01,96 in this environment that might lead me to outside of my conscience awareness 125 00:09:01,96 --> 00:09:04,808 actually back lash against this message and do something that in the long run 126 00:09:04,808 --> 00:09:13,603 could actually quite be harmful to me. so those are little examples of this idea 127 00:09:13,603 --> 00:09:19,828 that we can backlash against situational, environmental cues, in consumption ways, 128 00:09:19,828 --> 00:09:26,952 that will actually lead to outcomes that can be bad for us. 129 00:09:26,952 --> 00:09:30,734 obviously, if you sort of think classically from a, a traditional 130 00:09:30,734 --> 00:09:35,74 decision making, a traditional economic perspective, we would never do something 131 00:09:35,74 --> 00:09:39,939 that would be bad for us. And I think most folks, if you asked 132 00:09:39,939 --> 00:09:44,30 them, would not want to engage in these negative behaviors. 133 00:09:44,30 --> 00:09:47,780 And yet, we find ourselves doing so. And I'll return and, and, and visit to 134 00:09:47,780 --> 00:09:51,860 this general idea that sometimes things occur outside conscious awareness that 135 00:09:51,860 --> 00:09:57,776 might not be so good for us in, in a bit. the second line of work that I thought 136 00:09:57,776 --> 00:10:01,372 would be fun to, to talk about today is some work that we've done looking at, 137 00:10:01,372 --> 00:10:06,958 what we call, brief brand exposures. And the ideal here is that we're exposed, 138 00:10:06,958 --> 00:10:12,480 the average consumer is exposed to many many brands in a paticular, in one day. 139 00:10:12,480 --> 00:10:18,231 So for example, most western societies, we're exposed to somewhere between 5 and 140 00:10:18,231 --> 00:10:23,794 10,000 brands in a day. And obviously that's far too many brands 141 00:10:23,794 --> 00:10:28,120 for us to consciously process in a meaningful way. 142 00:10:28,120 --> 00:10:31,139 so what happens? Does this simply, do they simply pass in 143 00:10:31,139 --> 00:10:35,892 front of us, a logo on someones shirt a thing on a co-, on a coffee cup. 144 00:10:35,892 --> 00:10:40,862 or are they affecting us in some way, are they simply, you know, background noise 145 00:10:40,862 --> 00:10:46,695 or are they affecting us in some way? And one of the, the studies that we did 146 00:10:46,695 --> 00:10:51,505 to try to to sort of understand this this question, or to answer this question, was 147 00:10:51,505 --> 00:10:55,990 a study with with Tanya Chartrand and [UNKNOWN] Fitzsimmons where we looked at 148 00:10:55,990 --> 00:11:02,620 at different brief brand exposures. And the two that we'll tell you about 149 00:11:02,620 --> 00:11:06,126 today is Apple and IBM. So, we choose two brands that are in the 150 00:11:06,126 --> 00:11:09,961 product category, we then subliminally exposed people to one of each of these 151 00:11:09,961 --> 00:11:13,634 two brands. And, we then looked to see if it had an 152 00:11:13,634 --> 00:11:16,899 effect on peoples behavior in some meaningful way. 153 00:11:17,930 --> 00:11:21,780 the domain that we looked at to test whether it was impacting behavior, was in 154 00:11:21,780 --> 00:11:27,28 the, the sort of field of creativity. And the ideal was, that the Apple brand 155 00:11:27,28 --> 00:11:31,390 logo had very strong associations with creativity. 156 00:11:31,390 --> 00:11:35,141 Both Apple and IBM were equally liked, they were equally well-known, etcetera. 157 00:11:35,141 --> 00:11:39,970 but Apple had a really strong set of associations with creativity. 158 00:11:39,970 --> 00:11:43,234 So we exposed people to the brand logos outside their conscious awareness, and we 159 00:11:43,234 --> 00:11:46,450 put them in a setting where they could be creative, where they could demonstrate 160 00:11:46,450 --> 00:11:50,366 creativity. And what we found, was that people 161 00:11:50,366 --> 00:11:54,974 exposed to the Apple brand logo were dramatically more creative than people 162 00:11:54,974 --> 00:12:01,847 exposed to the Apple or to the IBM logo. Apple exposed people way more creative, 163 00:12:01,847 --> 00:12:05,111 IBM exposed people slightly less creative than a neutral of situation in the 164 00:12:05,111 --> 00:12:08,705 middle. So here's a, there's a little example of 165 00:12:08,705 --> 00:12:13,60 the simple incidental brand exposures that occur on a daily basis, thousands of 166 00:12:13,60 --> 00:12:16,600 them. And each of them is impacting us 167 00:12:16,600 --> 00:12:19,570 potentially in some way changing our behavior. 168 00:12:19,570 --> 00:12:22,236 Now, if I asked you do you think you be got more creative because you saw that 169 00:12:22,236 --> 00:12:25,948 Apple logo. I'm certain that everybody watching today 170 00:12:25,948 --> 00:12:29,920 would say, no that seems crazy. That really seems silly. 171 00:12:29,920 --> 00:12:34,810 How can that possibly be the case? and yet, we have very clear empirical 172 00:12:34,810 --> 00:12:39,835 evidence that these brief exposures change both the psychological process, as 173 00:12:39,835 --> 00:12:45,68 well as actual behavior. So, I've talked to you today about 174 00:12:45,68 --> 00:12:48,908 backlash, and how backlash can occur outside our conscious awareness, 175 00:12:48,908 --> 00:12:54,985 sometimes leading to harmful effects. I've talked to you about brief brand 176 00:12:54,985 --> 00:13:00,510 exposures, IBM and Apple, that can lead to positive effects. 177 00:13:00,510 --> 00:13:04,734 When should be we terrified that we're being influenced outside our conscious 178 00:13:04,734 --> 00:13:10,650 awareness, left, right, and center. I think it's easy to become paranoid that 179 00:13:10,650 --> 00:13:15,730 that the world around you is trying to change your behavior. 180 00:13:15,730 --> 00:13:17,934 The truth of the matter is the world around you is trying to change your 181 00:13:17,934 --> 00:13:21,68 behavior. Some of it is very systematic, some of it 182 00:13:21,68 --> 00:13:24,160 is not. I like to tell people when they think 183 00:13:24,160 --> 00:13:28,846 about unconscious consumption, that it's typically not the case that, for example, 184 00:13:28,846 --> 00:13:33,70 subliminal exposure to any kind of brand logo will make you choose that brand 185 00:13:33,70 --> 00:13:37,981 logo. So for example I'm a Diet Coke drinker, I 186 00:13:37,981 --> 00:13:41,182 love my Diet Coke. You could expose me to Diet Pepsi a 187 00:13:41,182 --> 00:13:44,734 million times in a row. I'll never choose Diet Pepsi over Diet 188 00:13:44,734 --> 00:13:47,601 Coke. Alright, however, with exposure to Diet 189 00:13:47,601 --> 00:13:51,259 Coke, whether it be through an ad, through watching someone walk by on a 190 00:13:51,259 --> 00:13:57,240 street with a Diet Coke lead me to want to consume a little more Diet Coke? 191 00:13:57,240 --> 00:14:01,77 The answer is proablay yes. So if you're trying to defend against 192 00:14:01,77 --> 00:14:04,220 that we've got to be very vigilant, alright. 193 00:14:04,220 --> 00:14:08,124 The reality is though that our ability to defend against the non-conscience 194 00:14:08,124 --> 00:14:11,910 influence in our environments is pretty limited. 195 00:14:11,910 --> 00:14:16,698 So I like to say and I like to, I'd like to leave you with this thought that it's 196 00:14:16,698 --> 00:14:21,486 probably worthwhile investing in being strategic about the brands and the 197 00:14:21,486 --> 00:14:27,840 consumption objects you surround yourself with. 198 00:14:27,840 --> 00:14:33,669 So, for example, if you're a swimmer, and you'd like to really swim a faster race, 199 00:14:33,669 --> 00:14:40,390 you'd like to cut a couple of tenths off your 50 meter swim. 200 00:14:40,390 --> 00:14:44,230 Maybe you should wear the same parka, on the warm up deck, that Michael Phelps 201 00:14:44,230 --> 00:14:47,997 wore. Now, the first day that you buy that 202 00:14:47,997 --> 00:14:51,330 parka, and you put it on, you're going to feel silly. 203 00:14:51,330 --> 00:14:54,385 You're going to realize that you've got Michael Phelps' parka on, and clearly 204 00:14:54,385 --> 00:14:58,536 that can't make you a faster swimmer. The second day, you might still feel a 205 00:14:58,536 --> 00:15:01,592 little of that. 3 weeks out, you're not going to be 206 00:15:01,592 --> 00:15:06,148 consciously thinking about the fact that you're strategically donning Michael 207 00:15:06,148 --> 00:15:11,674 Phelps' warm-up jacket. But that association between the jacket 208 00:15:11,674 --> 00:15:16,484 and Michael Phelps and how fast a swimmer he is, is going to be activated at some 209 00:15:16,484 --> 00:15:21,930 level below your conscious threshold in your mind. 210 00:15:21,930 --> 00:15:26,480 You hit the pool, you swim, you cut the 2 10ths off. 211 00:15:26,480 --> 00:15:31,216 Same thing for creativity, for, for for intelligence, for just about any 212 00:15:31,216 --> 00:15:35,380 desirable aspirational goal you might have. 213 00:15:35,380 --> 00:15:40,624 Surrounding yourself with consumer goods that are strongly associated with that 214 00:15:40,624 --> 00:15:45,184 and activate that idea in your mind can lead you to to basically be a, a 215 00:15:45,184 --> 00:15:51,250 successful strategic user of brands, products, etc. 216 00:15:51,250 --> 00:15:55,408 Rather than letting you have brands, products, etc, change you are, who you 217 00:15:55,408 --> 00:16:00,710 are and, and, and the way that you behave in a sort of random way. 218 00:16:00,710 --> 00:16:05,680 So think strategically, surround yourself with objects, with the brands, with the 219 00:16:05,680 --> 00:16:11,263 products that are going to make you a strategic unconscious consumer.