4 Ways Marketing Tactics Make You Impulse Buy

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Are we marketing blind? We currently live with less, spend more time as a family, and cut our budgets. We don’t need a Starbucks coffee every morning. We can live without shopping at Target for “non-essentials.” We can even live without toilet paper (although, I don’t recommend this)! Even among the anxiety, fear, and risks to our health if one thing has become clear it is that the most important things in life are not being advertised on T.V.. During this time, it’s important to identify marketing tactics that make you impulse buy, so when we begin again to consume we are intentional.

Don’t get me wrong. I still love to buy. Spending money is a great way to show support, give, simplify, and save time. I buy local, as best I can, shop slow fashion, and enjoy throwing money at experiences rather than things. However, if you’re like me, you’ve had a chance to “reset” and think about all the items you decluttered during quarantine. What items you bought that you never wore, used, or loved, and how you might change your habits in the future.

In a few months our economy will start up again, and we’ll have to choose what enters our homes, what products we consume, and what possessions we “want.” We’ll be inundated with products from large corporations telling a “story” about this pandemic, and slyly including their own name brand.

Marketing is becoming more elusive than ever. It’s sprinkled in our social media scroll, products featured in our favorite shows and movies, and not to mention your personal data being collected to make advertising even more effective. To better prepare ourselves for the influx of consumerism about to be thrown at our fleeting attention, check out this list of 4 ways marketing tactics have made you impulse buy.

4 Ways Marketing Tactics Make You Impulse Buy

1. Imitation – A Marketing Tactic that Makes You Impulse Buy

Have you ever heard a song on the radio for the first time and thought it wasn’t that good, but later in the week find yourself humming along? Oftentimes, just seeing a product, or repeated exposure to a song being played and listened to by others, makes you like it more.

Martin Lindstrom author of Buyology writes “just seeing a product over and over makes it more desirable. We see models in fashion magazines and want to dress like them or make up our faces the way they do. We watch the rich and the famous driving expensive cars and cavorting in their lavishly decorated homes and think, I want to live like that” (63). Simply seeing products repeatedly, makes us like them more.

I wonder how many products I actually don’t like, but simply have seen so often that I find it “okay.” For example, my dad is a pilot, and he complains that the actual worst coffee in the world is Starbucks. What? That can’t be! It’s splattered all over my social media scroll every day. Tons of people love it! But do they, or are we all just imitating?

We also buy things to make us look and seem better than our real selves. Why do you think I bought so many cheap clothes in my 20’s? I wanted to seem cooler, better looking, and higher in social status by having a high quantity of clothes, not actual quality. Lindstrom writes that “we calculate purchases based on how they might bring up us social status” (65).  Remember yourself as a 14 year old. “You pass by [Abercrombie and Fitch], your mirror neurons fire up. You can imagine yourself among them: popular, desired, at the center of it all” (65). We impulse buy still, like that 14 year old self we used to be, but just with other products.

How about social media? How many times have you seen an Instagram post with a smiling beautiful face, and a fresh cup of Starbucks coffee? Do you think that doesn’t influence you to want it? When we repeatedly see products, even unintentionally through our social media scroll, it makes the product more desirable.

Furthermore, impulse buying is a real reaction to walking into any store. Why do you think Target loads up the front of the store with cheap, cute, aesthetically pleasing color coded stuff? If you “find” something you desire, “the brain cells that release dopamine secrete a burst of good feeling, and this dopamine rush fuels our instinct to keep shopping even when our rational mind tells us we’ve had enough” (Lindstrom 64). Target knows that if a shopper immediately finds something for a bargain and desirable, they will continue with this dopamine rush, trying to imitate that feeling again and again while they load up their cart. Hello cute swimsuits to the left!

2. It’s Not the Logos – A Marketing Tactic that Makes You Impulse Buy

Logos are no longer important. Instead, brands and logos are slyly added into “stories,” and the logo or brand might not even be shown, but the feeling and marketing tactics are effective.

This is a brilliant example from Big Tobacco where a logo or brand wasn’t even utilized, but the advertising was effective.

“In 1997, in preparation for the ban on tobacco advertising, that was to come into place in the United Kingdom, Silk Cut, a popular British tobacco brand began to position its logo against a background of purple silk in every ad it ran.  It didn’t take long for consumers to associate this plain swath of purple silk with the silk cut logo, and eventually the brand itself. So when the advertising ban came into effect, and the logo was no longer permitted on ads or billboards, the company simply created highway billboards that didn’t say a word about Silk Cut or cigarettes, but merely showcased the logo-free swaths of purple silk… Shortly after, a research study revealed that an astonishing 98% of consumers identified those billboards as having something to do with Silk Cut, although most were unable to say exactly why.”

(Lindstrom 85)

Even colors, feelings, and status inadvertently can influence us to associate brands and logos. In the age of social media, we must be vigilant in how we are being persuaded.

3. Rituals – A Marketing Tactic that Makes You Impulse Buy

As we enter into our “new normal,” marketers and advertising will push this “getting back to normal” or feature old rituals we once loved. Getting that coffee every morning. Shopping for that new swimsuit, or buying all the toys for your kids. Now more than ever “We’re all searching for stability and familiarity, product rituals give us an illusion of comfort and belonging” (Lindstrom 99).

This is precisely the reason we set our own rituals at home. Getting up in the morning and washing your face, making a cup of coffee, or scrolling through social media. What you may be surprised to realize is that “a lot of consumers have an almost religious sense of loyalty to their favorite brands and products” because of the rituals they have built around them (Lindstrom 99). Pepsi or Coke? Starbucks or Black Rock? Mercedes or Toyota?

What rituals do you already follow, and do you recognize brand loyalty?Brand rituals don’t always have to be with major purchases like cars, it can be brand loyalty and rituals for special occasions. For instance, if someone is having a birthday in my home I’m making Funfetti cupcakes. There is no question and it’s bought every year.

Here’s an easy one that Americans are all too familiar with. Oreos with milk (Lindstrom 101). Setting the ritual and practice of eating Oreos with milk has not only boosted sales of Oreos, but also filled the purses of Big Dairy.

Have you ever wondered why “Subway sandwiches are made in the same way every time?” (Lindstrom  102). This familiar ritual provides stability and comfort for customers. Seeing marketing rituals for what they are, will help you realize when you may have formed a habit based on marketing. Then you can decide if you want to keep the ritual, or change. For me I’ll keep my Funfetti cupcakes for special occasions, but I never was too loyal to milk. Sorry Oreos!

4. Stories – A Marketing Tactic that Makes You Impulse Buy

Ever watched American Idol? What are the judges sipping? Coke of course! Seeing brands in a storyline is becoming more prevalent, and effective. Now brands make a cameo in your favorite movies, T.V. shows, and pepper your social media feed with “influencers” around the world.

Because Coke is displayed in the actual story of American Idol, the brand’s  marketing is more effective than a 30 second commercial in between singers. Lindstrom writes “through subtle and brilliant integration, Coke…has painstakingly affiliated itself with the dreams, aspirations, and starry-eyed fantasies of potential idols” (50).  You probably didn’t even realize that the brand has changed in your mind, and that has driven sales.

What’s interesting is that the 30 second commercials in between your favorite T.V. series are less effective. We actually have little recollection of brands that don’t play a significant role in the story. When you’re watching your next T.V. show or movie see how many brands are present in the actual plot to become aware of marketing tactics.

Final Words

After this pandemic we will be encouraged to spend our money again. I think we should be very intentional about what and where we buy. In fact, I am going to try my best to spend local, and at small businesses as much as possible. These are the people who have been hit the hardest, the non-essential small  businesses. I know that sparking my local economy will fill the pockets of my community members. Plus, I know that many source, provide jobs, and in turn buy from other local small businesses.

It’s no longer a necessity to buy that new cheap blouse, eat fast food every night, or buy “all the things” for our children. We can thrive with less.

P.S. We always ask readers to follow us on Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook. We consciously try to document our everyday simple lives with wellness, financial literacy, and minimalism tips. If you’re trying to cut out social media, you’ll need to subscribe directly to this blog. We welcome you to join us!

P.P.S. Sorry Starbucks and Target. Don’t worry, I still shop and buy from you. I just don’t shop and buy as often.

Join the Discussion

What do you miss spending money on the most during this pandemic?

Author

Maria Halcumb is a teacher, writer, reading specialist, and mother. You can find her reading books, being active in nature, minimizing her life, and spending time with family and friends in the great PNW, or Northern Minnesota. If you want to learn more about Maria, check out the About page.

Source

Lindstrom, Martin. Buyology: the New Science of Why We Buy. Currency Doubleday, 2008.