Every minute we are inadvertently bombarded by images and marks that represent brands. Just sitting at your desk you can probably count far beyond a dozen around you. Rarely do we think twice about the significance of these marks but we may be taking them into consideration more than we are consciously aware of. According to a recent study from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, we have the tendency to mirror the traits reflected by the logos of the companies we surround ourselves with.
Professors Gavan Fitzsimons and Tanya Chartrand of Duke, and Gráinne Fitzsimons of the University of Waterloo, Canada recently conducted an experiment that tested the effects of brands on behavior. They did this by selecting two competing brands, Apple and IBM, both well respected by consumers, with distinct and well-defined brand personalities, and then asked 341 students to participate in a visual acuity test. One of the two logos was flashed on a screen for 30 milliseconds. Then the participant was asked to list all possible uses for a brick, beyond building a wall, to evaluate their creativity. Participants exposed to the apple logo produced significantly more uses for a brick than those exposed to the IBM logo.
“This is the first clear evidence that subliminal brand exposures can cause people to act in very specific ways,” said Gráinne Fitzsimons. “We’ve performed tests where we’ve offered people $100 to tell us what logo was being flashed on screen, and none of them could do it. But even this imperceptible exposure is enough to spark changes in behavior.”
In an interview with NPR reporter, Susan Stamberg, Fitzsimons suggested that creativity can lend itself to a feeling of happiness. At a non-conscious level, these feelings may result in an increased loyalty to the brands that make us happy.
So the next time you are listening to your ipod, consider the thought, would you feel differently if you were listening to that music on any other mp3 player?
(This study brought up several questions as I was reading that I did not include in this post. Feel free to add your own input in the comments below if you are interested in sharing your thoughts on brand influence.)
 |
Coming Soon! |
|
Wow! What a fascinating study on the role of brand storytelling and human behavior. Sounds like this research supports that brands shape our mental environment and help to define our perception of what is or isn’t possible. This study reminds me of some of the brilliant brand-brain research promoted by Martin Lindstrom in his book Buy-ology.