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It鈥檚 no secret that marketing is all about emotion. Years of research has gone into working out how best to sell as much of your product as possible to your customers, and there are thousands of different techniques you can use to influence how people feel about the things they buy.聽Psychology plays a large role in this, so we thought we would examine just a handful of the psychological tricks marketers use every day.

Limited edition

When you鈥檙e running late, your brain tends to kick your prioritisation skills into gear. You鈥檒l start only doing the necessary tasks you need to complete, and you鈥檒l do them a little faster than usual. This is because 鈥渇ear of missing out鈥�, or FOMO, is a great motivator 鈥� you don鈥檛 want to be the only one of your friends and family to miss out on something.

Marketers know this, but in today鈥檚 mass produced world it can be difficult to create this feeling of urgency. That is why they utilise 鈥渓imited edition鈥� products. By putting a timescale on items, customers will worry that if they don鈥檛 act now, they may miss out.

Cadbury鈥檚 do this intentionally every year with their Creme Eggs, which are only sold between New Year鈥檚 Day and Easter. Although that is a timespan of about four months, the false scarcity means that Creme Eggs are high sellers throughout, through customers鈥� fear that they only have a small amount of time to enjoy them.

Older kids

This is one you may not have noticed growing up, but advertisers of kids鈥� toys tend to use children in their adverts that are a little older than the target demographic. So an advert for a toy intended for 5-8 year olds will feature 10 year olds.

Why is that? The theory goes that kids will see older kids playing with a toy they want, and associate it with being 鈥渃ool鈥�, because kids tend to look up to older children. Keep an eye out for this the next time you鈥檙e forced to watch Paw Patrol and the adverts come on!

Celebrity endorsement

Using older kids in adverts is similar to the trend of 鈥渋nfluencers marketing鈥� 鈥� the idea that it is more important who is in your advert as opposed to what is being sold. There has been a large surge in this kind of advertising over the past decade with the rise of social media, which has created a whole new generation of influencers with dedicated audiences.

However, the practice is nothing new, as celebrities have long been associated with marketing. An advertising block on TV rarely goes by without at least one celebrity endorsement. This is again linked to people reacting more favourably to a product their favourite celebrities are associated with. 鈥淒o you like Beyonc茅? Then you鈥檒l love this perfume!鈥�.

Noticing this and trying to pick apart why a certain celebrity has been chosen to be the face of a product is a great way to start thinking about psychology and marketing more in-depth. Next time you see a famous person on a TV advert, ask yourself what qualities the advert is trying to convey about the product it is selling by associating it with that particular celebrity.聽

Scientific jargon

Authority is another big factor in marketing. A celebrity鈥檚 voice carries weight, but so does that of an 鈥渆xpert鈥�. If a product is recommended by a third party, then it seems to validate everything else said about the product. If something is 鈥渟cientifically tested by experts鈥�, then that鈥檚 a good sign, right?

Well it can be. But what exactly does 鈥渢ested鈥� mean? And what qualifies someone as an 鈥渆xpert鈥�? There may be a reason why these are kept vague, because if they are left open to interpretation for the customers, they can come to whatever conclusion they want.

For example, if a skincare product has been touted as 鈥渄ermatologically tested鈥�, that sounds good! The product is safe to use, and won鈥檛 cause any side effects. But all that means is it was tested on human skin 鈥� it doesn鈥檛 say what the test results were!

Store layout

Finally, we鈥檒l look at something you can explore for yourselves next time you鈥檙e doing your weekly shop. Supermarkets put a lot of time and effort into the layout of their store. While this arrangement may sometimes feel random, it is anything but. Several factors govern where products are displayed, and a supermarket has to take all of them into consideration to get the most out of your visit.

You may notice that flowers, fruit and veg are almost always placed at the front of the store, so they are the first thing you encounter when you enter. This welcomes customers to the shop with a nice smell, and the feeling of freshness, that customers will then relate to the rest of the products on sale (the fish counter is usually placed nearby too, to cover up the smell).

Related products are also placed apart from each other, so that you are inclined to walk through the entire building to get everything you want, exposing you to more things you could buy. If you鈥檙e shopping for ingredients for a roast dinner for example, the vegetables will often be placed as far away from the meat as possible. This is also why the layout changes so often 鈥� in your confusion over everything moving, you鈥檒l have to walk past even more products!

These are just some of the things marketers do to influence consumer psychology. If you鈥檙e interested in finding out more, we have a range of courses in both Psychology and Marketing, all of which offer year-long industry placements!聽