Do you see what I see?

I'm sure that almost everyone has seen these images before. They're classic illusions: do you seen an old woman or a young woman? Do you see a rabbit or a duck?

If you stare at these illusions long enough, trying to decide how you want to categorize them in your mind (young or old? rabbit or duck?), you will eventually get a headache and stop looking at the pictures. Similarly, if a company is trying to force themselves into multiple categories in the consumer's mind, the customer will become confused and, possibly, form a negative opinion about the company or its products.

To avoid this confusion, a company must choose one category, one position, to hold in the consumer's mind. They can't be both a rabbit and a duck, they have to choose the one category that best suits them and truly own that positioning.

That's where advertising comes in. Even though the client can be seen as both a rabbit and a duck, research has found that the target market likes rabbits better because they're cuter. It is then the agency's job to figure out how to make consumers focus only on the rabbit. How can you get someone to look at that picture and only see the rabbit, not the duck?

That's the perpetual problem, and I love solving it.

Self-fulfilled

There is a very well known psychological theory called the "self-fulfilling prophecy". An over-simplified example of this theory is that if you think you are going to do poorly on an exam or in a sporting event, you will. The basic concept is that if you have an attitude or believe something about yourself, it will come true because you will either subconsciously or consciously take actions to make it come true.

For the most part, this theory refers to personal/inner thoughts and feelings fulfilling themselves in an outward manner...but I've recently noticed that this phenomenon can be more powerful if your self-related thoughts are made public. If you write something down, post something to the internet or tell a friend, I think your chances of self-fulfilling are much higher. Once you've consciously recognized that thought, or even shared it with others, your subconscious desire to fulfill it skyrockets.


I've noticed this even in myself. There is a section on Facebook located right underneath your profile picture that asks you to, very simply, "write something about yourself". This box is big enough only to host a sentence or two, so I felt that if I was going to write only one sentence about myself, it better be something good. I noticed that some of my friends had written things about their families, jobs, hobbies or quotes from famous people. So I did some thinking and web browsing to find something clever to "write about myself". Finally I decided on a quote I found that says, "I say luck is when an opportunity comes along, and you're prepared for it."


I've never said that quote aloud and I don't know if anyone has ever even read it in on my Facebook page...but ever since I put that "personal thought" about myself in a public place, I've noticed that more of my actions lead me towards fulfilling it. Because I chose to publicly associate that quote with my personal characteristics, I think that the self-fulfilling prophecy kicked into turbo-mode because if I didn't self-fulfill, I wouldn't be the only person to realize my "failure".

There you have it; my belief about the self-fulfilling prophecy: If you publicly announce something about yourself, your rate of self-fulfilling that sentiment is higher than if you were to keep it to yourself. Take it or leave it.

Technology and Culture

One day I was riding in the car with my parents and we were listening to XM Radio, "60's on 6". The station only plays songs that were released during the 1960's. I couldn't help but notice that my parents knew almost every song...and when they didn't know a song, they thought it was strange that they had never heard it before.

This made me wonder what songs XM Radio would play if they had a station that only played songs that were released between 2000 and 2010...and I quickly realized that there would probably be a lot of songs I wouldn't recognize. Right now, I have over 2,000 songs in my music library and I feel like that is a pretty average number. But, if you were to compare my library to a random person's, I bet we wouldn't have many of the same songs. Even though I love the music that I listen to just as much as the next person loves the music that they listen to, if we aren't listening to the same music, is it weakening our culture?

In 1965, music wasn't as available as it is today, at least not in such copious amounts...and it definitely was not as easy to store all in one place. While those may seem like negative things, I think it made that generation's cultural identity stronger.

The massive amounts of music, television, news and other kinds of culture we are exposed to on a daily basis is great; you can find a niche that you really love and immerse yourself in it. BUT, has the technology (MP3 players, DVRs, satellite radio, etc) that has enabled us to explore all of these options actually weakened the overall sense of commonality across our generation?

Connecting the Generational Gap

The weather this week has been beautiful here in Michigan! Abnormally warm for the end of March/beginning of April. It was like someone flipped the switch and turned spring on. As a result of all the great weather, there were so many new activities going on outside. It seemed like everyone was outside either playing corn hole, frisbee, or (the college-town favorite) beer pong. Everyone crawled out of their winter holes to take in the sun and enjoy the nice weather outside.

While I enjoyed seeing and participating some of these outside activities, there was one thing in particular that has really stuck out in my mind. Earlier this week, I was walking to class on campus and I noticed a father and son playing catch. Fairly typical, I know. But the interesting part was that the father was using a baseball glove and the son was using a lacrosse stick.

It is a very simple thing, but it really caught my attention. It made me think of a generational gap that this father and son were able to overcome in order to spend time together. Perhaps the father enjoys a more traditional baseball-style catch, while the son's interests lie in the more modern, newly popular lacrosse-style catch. It made me think that they were able to find a way to find a connection, a similarity, between the new and the old, the traditional and the modern, and they were able to use that connection to spend time together in a way that met the standards of both the father and the son.

I think there are so many other similarities between new and old that can be connected together to make a cohesive team and encompass multiple generations, just like this baseball glove/lacrosse stick example. The one thing I can think of off the top of my head is Facebook. While it was originally designed just for college students, it is now popular among a much older demographic as well. Here, the game of catch (or the common factor) is ease of communication. The ability to easily stay in touch with relatives and long-lost friends could be considered the baseball glove, while sharing your latest YouTube discovery or updating your friends on your spring break plans, would be the lacrosse stick.

I'd say, if we were able to find those connections in other products, and portray them that way to consumers, we'd have a pretty good way to expand the product's demographic to multiple generations.

Consumer Perspective

Advertising is at its best when it takes the consumer's point of view into account, anybody who is even remotely interested in advertising knows this...but it's much easier said than done. I've noticed some new campaigns that, in my opinion, speak directly to the target successfully and some that really fall short.

Last week, Kotex launched their U by Kotex campaign, which asks young women to help "Break the Cycle" of the taboo that surrounds the menstrual cycle. As soon as I heard of this idea, I loved it. I went to the site, I watched the videos, I took the polls. I did it all. And I was shocked at what I saw! One poll showed that the majority of young women didn't feel comfortable telling their friends when they were on their period...if you aren't going to talk to your friends about your period, you certainly aren't going to talk to many other people about it. Their first launched commercial serves as a parody of all other tampon/pad commercials, pointing out how those tradition commercials fantasize the realities of your menstrual cycle. Ahh, it was like a breath of fresh air! Thank you, Kotex and JWT for standing up for women, giving young girls an educational tool and helping break the cycle!

While the products that go along with this campaign don't seem extremely different from the traditional, the feeling and movement behind the campaign is what is going to sell. This is the best example I can think of of a campaign successfully talking directly to their target. It is what they want to hear, it is how they feel, but no one else has said it before.

However...some other brands really seem to be struggling to reach their consumers on that same level. Allstate just launched a website asking for media placement ideas to be submitted. Where's the strategy there? It's as if they are begging, "Hey everyone, tell us what to do because we don't know how to reach you!" Allstate has worked with Leo Burnett and Starcom for a while...if those two agencies can't help Allstate with a few successful media placements...I don't know how much luck they will have with this approach. I'm interested to see how it works for them and will definitely be following along to see what they decide.

"You can't love someone until you love yourself"

Recently I was reminiscing about my first crush. I was probably 11 years old and what makes this experience so memorable is the humiliation that I felt when I tried to tell him that I liked him. ...That kind of thing just doesn't go over well with 11 year old boys. Then I started wondering why that is the case for young people, but as you get older, it is not so taboo to express your feelings to a person you "like". Obviously, there is the fact that young people are immature and shouldn't be having relationships in the first place, but I wasn't curious about the relationship aspect, but the fact that as you grow up, it becomes easier to tell someone how you feel.

It might be because when you are older, people are actually looking for relationships, or because people are more mature and you know that (most of time) someone won't laugh in your face for asking them out. But I think it goes deeper than that.

When you are very young, you don't know yourself very well. You don't know what things you like about yourself, what values you possess or even what makes you, you. Most relationships form because the other person has characteristics that you see as important or as having value. So, if you don't know what is important to you, like most young people, how can you expect to successfully tell someone how you feel? Odds are, they won't feel the same way simply because they don't know what is important to them.

Of course, as you grow older, you begin to know yourself very well. You might know, for example, that you are very goal oriented and, as a result, you could never be in a relationship with someone who is not. Therefore, you would not be attracted to the high school drop out that still lives in his parent's basement that your friend keeps trying to set you up with. So, I guess what I'm getting at is, as you grow older, you are more comfortable telling someone your feelings because you are more confident that the person you have feelings for is compatible with you. This confidence is a result of knowing yourself, your qualities and your values, and being certain that the other person has similar values. Put simply (and very cliche-ly): you can't love someone until you love yourself.

Norms

Today, in my 300 level Spanish class, a student was answering our teacher's question (in Spansih, of course) and he made a very rudimentary mistake. He misspoke the word "thirteen". In Spanish, this mistake is not only rudimentary, but pretty funny. Everyone in the class immediately recognized the mistake, including the student who misspoke; however, no one laughed at this mistake until he did.

I suppose this isn't a very unique thing to notice. Most people pick up on social cues, such as when it is ok to laugh at someone. It could simply be viewed as common courtesy...but I believe courteousness has evolved with time just as our anatomies have. Other people's past experiences in social situations have given us insight into human behaviors and have helped establish the social cues/techniques that we use today, whether we realize it or not. No one forces you to obey the social norms of your culture except for the strength of taboo and judgment, and that seems to be enough.

Avoiding taboo isn't a bad thing. The example from my Spanish class shows how social norms can spare another's feelings. All norms help create a culture, and without a culture, we'd all be the same and boring...so, thank you social norms, for steering us away from humiliation and creating a foundation for our cultural behaviors!