When we are online, we often view content designed to get us to buy something. Companies and people who make money this way are called online marketers. The more customers these marketers attract, the more money they make. Today’s GKIS article teaches you how to recognize the tricks marketers use to earn money. If you are able to recognize these tricks, you will be more likely to avoid buying things you don’t need or want.
6 Tricks Marketers Use to Encourage You to Buy
Neuromarketing Strategies
Neuromarketing strategies refer to the tricks created from research that studies customer motivations, preferences, and buying behaviors. With customer data collected from brain scans (which areas of the brain engage with certain ad content), eye movement tracking, and customer reports, marketers design their products and advertisements for the best appeal. This means that advertisers know what we respond to and how we respond better than we even know!
Illusion of Scarcity
The illusion of scarcity refers to the technique of only offering a product or a discount for a limited time. By using terms like BUY NOW or LIMITED-TIME OFFER, marketers make us anxious to click the buy button quickly without thinking it through. Adults are better at taking their time before buying than kids are. Not only have adults had more experience and practice, but their brains are more developed to control buying impulses. Most people believe that using these tricks on kids is unfair and unreasonable.
Pester Power
Once a child wants something, they will pester and beg their parents to buy it for them. Parents then buy the item to make their kids happy, sometimes without thinking enough about it. Pester power leads to more family stress and unnecessary purchases.
Packaging Tricks
We buy things if they look great and if we think they would be fun or good for us. That is why marketers spend a lot of money on design and use certain words and images that suggest the product is healthy even if it isn’t, like calling sugary flavors “fruit flavors.”
Using Slot Machine Reward Schedules
We will keep doing something if we are rewarded for it (get something for doing it). Video gaming companies know this. That is why they offer lots of rewards (like points, levels, weapons, and access to other players), so we keep playing and spending.
Psychology studies have shown that the best way to keep somebody playing is by giving them a variable ratio of reinforcement. This means the player is rewarded after an unpredictable number of responses (e.g., sometimes after three clicks, sometimes after one, and sometimes after twelve). There is no set pattern; it’s variable.
Slot machines are also set with a variable ratio of reinforcement because it is the best formula to keep people playing. Gaming companies apply a variable ratio of reinforcement within gaming design to keep players playing too. This can lead to losing control over the time we spend playing, which can lead to unhealthy screen use.
Too much reward can also overload your nervous system and stress you out without you realizing it. If you are cranky after gameplay, it may be that you’ve played too long or should opt for a mellower game.
Aspirational Marketing
Aspirational marketing refers to the technique of making the customer aspire, or wish, to be like the celebrity or influencer selling the product or to be happy like other customers seem to be.
Children’s brains are wired to copy people they look up to. This makes them vulnerable to this trick.
Parents must look out for ads that sell inappropriate things to young kids like sexy clothing, make-over products, rated-R movies, violent or sexual video games, music with inappropriate lyrics, processed and high-sugar, high-fat foods, and other things that aren’t good for kids.
What do psychologists have to say about marketers targeting kids?
In the last twenty years, people have been speaking out about concerns that young children are being specifically targeted by online marketers. In 2004, the American Psychological Association (APA) released a special task force report addressing these concerns.
They concluded that advertising to kids is unfair and promotes the use of harmful products to kids. They recommended that:
- more research be conducted,
- new policies be adopted like restricting advertising to children 8 years of age and under, and
- developing media literacy programs starting in the third grade.
Other countries have responded to these concerns. For example, television marketing to children was banned in Norway and Sweden, junk-food ads were banned in Britain, and war toys were banned in Greece. America is far behind.
Parents and teachers are our children’s only real defense against sneaky online marketers. Although teaching kids about these tricks is a good start, it may place unfair expectations on children. Even knowing the tricks, they often still can’t stop themselves. They don’t have the brain development to do that yet.
We Can Make a Difference
Not only must parents adopt smart online management strategies, but they must also demand changes within the online world and advocate for new laws.
Recent changes in child nutrition are excellent examples of how change can start at home and lead to effective progress within the broader community. For example, due to parents determined to make positive changes in California elementary and middle schools, soft drinks were banned, and healthier food choices were offered.
We can impact what happens to our kids on the internet too! What do you think about formal advertising regulations? Should the government step in or is it the responsibility of the parents? How much regulation is too much? Is there enough regulation already?
If you are ready to reduce the marketing aimed at your kids, check out our Screen Safety Toolkit. Designed to offer tried-and-true links and descriptions of free and for-sale safety products at the device level, this course gives you what you need to increase online safety for your family.
Onward To More Awesome Parenting,
Tracy S. Bennett, Ph.D.
Mom, Clinical Psychologist, CSUCI Adjunct Faculty
GetKidsInternetSafe.com
