The women’s majlis: Tackling the subliminal power of adverts

Why are we tempted to buy products that we have no need for? Is it greed or are we being pushed and pulled by unseen forces? I suspect the latter. Huge effort goes into mental manipulation to get us to buy things that we don’t need, and we, the consumers, are often totally blind to it. This can have negative consequences for some of us, leading to debt, stress and feeling guilty for having wasted so much money on needless things. Big business uses advertisements, clever pricing and even simple things like colours to capture our hearts. And if you capture the heart, the wallet will surely follow.

In adverts and business logos, colour gets lots of attention. Colour can induce subconscious emotional responses and strengthen the message sent through an advert. Fast-food chains, for example, regularly use the colours red and yellow in adverts and/or logos. Research shows that warm colours stimulate feelings of excitement and increase appetite, and also provide a feeling of comfort in restaurant spaces. This, naturally, causes consumers to loiter and perhaps order a cup of coffee or dessert after their meal.

Advertisers and marketers carefully choose the words in commercials. Certain words are particularly encouraged, based on research of the psychological effect. Examples are the words “save” and “guarantee”, as all people prioritise saving resources and appreciate being promised what they want. while “you” provides a sense of personal importance.

Another powerful manipulation tool is pricing – especially anchoring. Anchoring is when the retailer shows the consumer a high-price item, then a relatively low-price item, which is the item they’re hoping to sell. This causes the latter to seem more desirable to the consumer. The first price is called the anchor price, because it makes the second price seem a lot smaller and influences our readiness to buy the second item.

Similarly effective is whether or not retailers remove the dollar/dirham sign. In an experiment by researchers at Cornell University, customers of a New York cafe were split into three groups and given different menus. The first group was given a menu with a dollar sign next to each price. The second was given a menu with the word “dollar” spelt out. The third was given a menu with plain numbers. The last group spent the most money. Clearly, the currency symbol leads consumers to believe that the item is more expensive than it actually is.

These are just a few small examples. However, we need to consider the ethics of such practices, and protect individuals who are vulnerable to compulsive overspending and running up debts. Psychology can help here, too.

Personally, I cannot count the times that I found myself heading home with goods and chattels that were as unnecessary as they were new.

Now, with Ramadan about to start, we might want to think twice before allowing ourselves to be swayed by the artful methods of those ever-so-clever marketing agents.

Sara Yahya is a 19-year-old student at Khalifa University of Science, Technology and Research.

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